Dilip Chhabria's company would design cars and take loans to buy them using multiple fake registration numbers, value of scam could cross Rs 100 crore, say cops
Dilip Chabbria was remanded in police custody till January 2; the DC Avanti sports car was seized by police on Dec 18. Pic/Suresh Karkera
Following the arrest of India's top sports car designer Dilip Chhabria, the Mumbai Crime Branch on Tuesday said that he was a part of one of the biggest pan-India sports car finance and forgery scam, where he was involved in multiple registrations for cars he manufactured and obtained multiple loans from Non-Banking Finances Companies (NBFCs) on the same cars used fake documents.
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The Crime Branch has estimated the fraud to be worth Rs 40 crore. The value could go up to Rs 100 crore and more. Milind Bharambe, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) said on Tuesday, "Chhabria availed multiple loans averaging around Rs 42 lakh on a single car worth around Rs 60 lakh. The cars would be designed by Dilip Chhabria Designs Pvt Ltd and bought by the company itself using loans from NBFCs. The cars would also be sold to real customers. There are multiple registrations of cars on the same chassis and engine number."
Around 127 cars were sold in India and other countries since the company launched its DC Avanti model in 2016. The production of the DC Avanti sports cars was done at a plant in Pune district. "We suspect that out of 127 cars, around 90 cars were used for such fraudulent financing and multiple registrations. Most of the cars were financed by NBFCs, one of them being BMW Financial Services," Bharambe said.
NBFCs being probed
Police found various loopholes in the loan processing by the NBFCs involved. A CIU officer said, "For example, if a loan was granted for one of the cars on November 3, 2015, the application for the same was received on November 16, 2015. Ideally, the application should come before the loan is sanctioned. The invoice had the date of October 13 and the registration date showed as February 20, 2017." "This indicates that NBFCs are involved with Chhabria. The concerned people will be summoned in the probe," the officer added.
The Crime Branch suspects that system let the accused avoid paying taxes, custom duties and GST. "The quantum of the loss to the state exchequer is being probed,"
Bharambe said.
How the scam was busted?
Assistant Police Inspector (API) Sachin Vaze of the CIU (Crime Intelligence Unit) received information about a DC Avanti car with a bogus registration number coming to South Mumbai. On December 18, when the car came to Taj Mahal Palace in Colaba, it was seized. A Tamil Nadu-based businessmen, Indramal Ramani and his driver were inside the car.
"Ramani produced documents for the car registered in Chennai. The documents were genuine but further investigation revealed that another car in Haryana is registered with the same chassis and engine number in the name of Dilip Chhabria Design Pvt Ltd," said Bharambe. The car registered in Haryana was financed by BMW Financial Services. The company has financed around 41 other cars too.
Ramani was made a complainant in the case. He had purchased the DC Avanti car from Lalita Jewellery Mart for Rs 12,12,000 in 2019. The company had purchased it for Rs 42 lakh from Chhabria in 2016. Ramani also said that he came to know of the dual registrations in October after his son was caught in a traffic violation. Yes Bank, too, refused him a loan due to the same issue.
Crime Branch has named Chhabria's son, Bonito, one of the directors of the design company, as a wanted accused while Chabbria has been remanded to police custody till January 2.
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