The four accused, who are absconding, have been identified as Uday Bhaskar, Raj Purohit, Vikram Singh and Kishan.

A senior police inspector at APMC market police station said, “All the cheques issued by the four accused were not accepted by the bank, as they had no funds in their own bank accounts and would purposely spell their own names incorrectly. They usually issued cheques two days after the order was placed.”

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According to police officials, the accused initially gained the sellers’ trust by paying them for orders that usually consisted of one or two items amounting to a maximum total of Rs 20,000, but the mode of payment was always by cheque.

Big ‘business’
Later, the four accused opened a shop named ‘Synergy Supplies’ in order to defraud the shopkeepers on a larger scale. Using the name of their shop, they started placing order for goods in bulk on a regular basis. Each consignment consisted of goods worth more than Rs 1 lakh.

Till date, the four accused have ordered watches worth Rs 65 lakh, inverters worth Rs 7 lakh, BlackBerry handsets worth Rs 22 lakh, water purifiers worth Rs 6 lakh, Rs 20 lakh worth of stationery and dry fruits worth Rs 10 lakh.

While the accused have disappeared along with some of the goods, items worth Rs 40 lakh have been recovered from their fraudulent shop opposite Dhanya Market.u00a0