Jharsuguda: Police arrested three members of a racket that sold heavy cargo vehicles outside the state and made false insurance claims to avoid having to repay the vehicle loans, a report said Sunday.
The accused were identified as Pabitra Panda, proprietor of a private passenger bus Taj, Nandakishore Yadav, a middleman and garage owner Devi Prasanna Mishra. They were arrested from Bhubaneswar during a raid. Panda had earlier worked as an agent of a vehicle finance company.
After reports surfaced, Ashok Nayak managed to flee before the police could apprehend him. A case was registered in this connection and the accused were produced in court from where they were remanded to Jharsuguda sub-jail.
Police said the accused sold hundreds of vehicles outside the state from Jharsuguda via Bhubaneswar.
What surprised the police is that Nayak identified himself as a police officer and his father as a DSP and managed to dispose the trailer which he purchased with the loan from a finance company.
The accused slipped into the police dragnet while trying to dispose a 18-wheeler trailer from the town outside the state.
Police said the matter came up for probe after Nayak, son of a police drill sub-inspector at Beheramal, Nuapada lodged a complaint of theft of his newly purchased trailer (OD-16C-2939) at the Town police station August 31.
In his complaint, Ashok stated that his trailer had been stolen from the BTM by-pass road between August 23 and August 26.
Police registered a case and started a probe when intelligence sources said that the trolley of the stolen trailer mentioned by Nayak in his complaint was sold by himself for Rs 4 lakh to a person in Jharsuguda.
Nayak not only sold off the trolley but also managed to sell off the engine and other spare parts of the trailer with the help of the racket.
Nayak with the help of the trio managed to sell the engine in Andhra Pradesh at a price of Rs 3 lakh. The money earned from the sale was later deposited in his savings bank account.
Police doubted his claim and launched a probe after tapping his phone. It stumbled upon a well-oiled racket in Bhubaneswar behind the shady dealings.
A special squad of police arrested Panda, the mastermind of the racket, during a raid at an undisclosed location in Bhubaneswar September 26.
Panda was brought over to Jharsuguda where he admitted to his crime and based on his confessions police arrested Yadav and Mishra October 18. PNN
