A case has been registered against four men for cheating several people to the tune of Rs 6 crore on the pretext of selling ‘rice puller’ machines to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a premier agency of the US.
Babasaheb Sonawane (50), a resident of Hadapsar, lodged an FIR in this connection at Bundgarden police station on Tuesday.
Police have booked the four suspects, identified as Ram Gaikwad, Ramchandra Waghmare, Santosh Sapkal and Rahul Jadhav under sections 406, 420, 467, 468, 471, 120b, 34 of IPC and sections of Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act.
According to police, since June 2018, the accused persons allegedly lured many people to invest money into the business of selling ‘rice puller’ machines to NASA, claiming that it would give huge returns.
The accused allegedly claimed that researchers from NASA would be coming to India for this purpose. The accused also allegedly held meetings with the investors at a hotel in Sadhu Vaswani chowk area. Police said the accused lured people saying rice puller metal has huge demand. Several persons invested money in the business, but never got the returns they were assured.
Nearly a hundred investors filed complaints at the economic offences wing (EOW) of Pune city police. After conducting an inquiry into these complaints, an FIR was lodged. Assistant police inspector Anand Ruikar of EOW is probing the case.
