Noida police nabs South Delhi man in 'franchise fraud' case

A South Delhi man was arrested in Uttar Pradesh's Noida on Saturday in connection with a 'franchise fraud' in which scores of people have been allegedly duped to the tune of around Rs 30 crore, police said.

Manish Dahiya, 27, was held from Mamura Chowk here by officials from the Phase 3 police station.

Dahiya lives in Mehrauli, South Delhi, they said.

According to police, a group of people in the National Capital Region (NCR) had floated a company, “Hypermart”, registered in Sector 63 of Noida, and five-six more such firms to target people with the offer of giving them a “franchise store” of the firm in their city.

“They had taken money ranging from Rs 30 lakh to Rs 50 lakh from each person and eventually went untraceable. Thirty-eight such victims approached us alleging the accused duped them. The racket involves Rs 25 crore to Rs 30 crore,” DCP (Central) Harish Chander told reporters.

At least eight FIRs have been lodged at the Phase 3 police station in connection with the fraud case with complaints being received from Meerut, Chhatisgarh, Maharashtra and Gujarat, among other places from across the country, the officials said.

Four Ghaziabad-based members of the group were arrested on August 22 and properties worth around Rs 10 crore, including 3.3-kg gold, Rs 13,54,550 in cash and a Mercedes car was recovered from them, the officials said, adding one more arrest was made earlier this week in the case.