Sonam Kapoor’s father-in-law Harish Ahuja’s firm duped of over ₹27 crore in cyber fraud, says police

The Faridabad police has busted a gang of highly-sophisticated cybercriminals involved in duping an export-import firm of Harish Ahuja, the father-in-law of actor Sonam Kapoor of over ₹27 crore. Police on Friday said the tricksters had been duping Harish’s Faridabad-based firm, Shahi Export Factory, by misappropriating the Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies (ROSCTL) licenses, meant for his firm, on the basis of his forged Digital Signature Certificate and encashing them. (Also read: Sonam slams ‘racism’ faced by 700 Indian students who are stranded in Ukraine)

Explaining the modus operandi of the highly innovative cyber fraud, Faridabad Deputy Commissioner of Police (Headquarters) Nitish Agarwal said the government gives some incentives to export firms in the form of ROSCTL licenses, entitling them to some rebate in the excise and customs duties. These ROSCTL licenses are similar to digital coupons worth several lakh rupees, the DCP said, adding the fraudsters had secured a total of 154 ROSCTLs worth ₹27.61 crore of Ahuja’s firm and had been transferring them to fake and fictitious firms opened by them and encashing them. They also used to get these coupons encashed by transferring them to other firms, DCP Agarwal said.

He said working silently on the complaint of Sunil Ahuja’s firm since July last year, the Faridabad police has arrested a total of nine accused from different places in the country, including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Karnataka. The last arrest was made on December 23 last year, the officer said, adding some of the accused included former clerks and employees of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade, well-versed in the technicalities and working of the DGFT.

The DCP identified the arrested accused as Delhi residents Manoj Rana, Manish Kumar, Praveen Kumar, Lalit Kumar Jain, and Manish Kumar Moga besides Bhusan Kishan Thakur of Mumbai and Suresh Kumar Jain of Chennai. Two others arrested in the scam were identified as Ganesh Parsuram of Raichur in Karnataka, Rahul Raghunath of Raigadh, and Santosh Sitaram of Pune.

The DCP said accused Manoj Rana, Manish Kumar, Praveen Kumar, and Manish Kumar Moga had earlier worked as clerks in the DGFT and were well-versed in the functioning of the directorate. They used to fraudulently secure codes of big exim (export-import) firms and by checking their records, used to ascertain the money in their accounts as well as the value of the ROSCTL coupons they happened to be entitled to, before targetting them.

Sonam married Harish’s son entrepreneur Anand Ahuja in 2018. The two had dated for a few years before that. Apart from running a fashion brand called Bhane, Anand is also a director in his father’s company, which was duped by the fraudsters.