Surat diamond trader says Mumbai family cheated him of Rs 1.50 crore

According to Patel, Hiren Shah came to his firm on August 28, 2021, posing as the owner of a company importing laser cutting machines.

Shah and his wife told him that the company at Valsad was founded by their daughter and that the machine would cost Rs 1.30 crore. They also asked for an extra Rs 15 lakh as their commission.

In December 2021, Patel booked the machine and transferred the Rs 15 lakh to Hiren’s bank account, according to his complaint. He took a loan of Rs 95 lakh from the Tamilnad Mercantile Bank’s Surat branch to pay the remainder. He paid a total of Rs 1.50 crore to Shah by March 17, 2022. The couple had agreed to deliver the machine to his firm in the next 16-18 weeks.

As time passed but the machine failed to be delivered, Patel inquired with Shah on the phone and was told that the machine had got stranded at a Switzerland port owing to the Russia-Ukraine war.

Patel waited for a few more months before, in December 2022, calling up the Shah couple but they failed to answer his call. He visited the address given by Shah, only to find that no such firm existed there.

On Patel’s complaint, the Katargam police registered a case under Indian Penal Code sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant or by banker, merchant or agent) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) and started an investigation.

Talking to The Indian Express, police inspector Y B Gohil said, “We have registered a case against the Shah couple and their daughter for cheating a diamond businessman of Surat of Rs 1.50 crore. The couple used to make different excuses when the complainant asked them to get the machine delivered. We are trying to locate the couple and their daughter and will arrest them soon.”