Four arrested for cheating vendors posing as salesmen

The police nabbed a gang of four persons who were cheating small scale vendors by offering them big consignments at dirt cheap prices, provided the shopkeepers deposited a huge amount of money with them.

The police has nabbed the main person and three of his associates while they were roaming suspiciously in Bowenpally market in the early morning hours on Wednesday and recovered `1.25 lakh from the accused. The police identified the accused as S.S. Syed and Shabbir, 35, Mir Mehdi Ali Razvi, 55, Mohammed Shahid Ali khan, 38, and Zia Abbas 25.

According to the police, after doing a recce on newly opened shops and gullible petty vendors, the cheats used to approach them as sales executives and offer them a large consignment for a small price.

This first came to the notice of the police when a vendor from Trimulgherry approached them. “The accused cheated a small shop vendor in June stating that they were from Coca Cola company and offered him a large consignment. Initially they offered 24 crates of coke with additional benefits like refrigerator, snack stand and LED lighting board for the shop. In order to make their offer believable, they offered 12 packets of max cells as complmentary and collected an amount of `15,000 from him,” said Mr R. Rajeshwara Rao, inspector.

After realising they were cheated the vendors approached the police. With the help of CCTV footage the police identified the accused and gave a ‘look out’ notice.