250 shipping containers of cereal grain worth over Dh15 million stolen in audacious trading fraud
Scam leaves scores of Indian exporters devastated and baffled at the same time
23 TTs worth $4.13 million cancelled after cheques issued against them bounce
Conman who projected himself as multi-millionaire business owner disappears without a trace
Dubai: For the past few weeks, several rice exporters from India have been camping in Dubai, trying to get to the bottom of an audacious Dh15.38 million scam that has left them baffled and devastated at the same time.
So far the traders haven’t had any luck. Understandably, their patience is beginning to wear thin.
“What is at stake here are not some small packets but nearly 250 rice shipping containers measuring 20 X 8 feet each. Put end to end they could occupy a football field,” says an exasperated Vipin Goel, managing director of Kamla Rice and General Mills in Karnal, a city located in the north Indian state of Haryana.
“So many shipping containers can’t disappear from a warehouse just like that,” Goel reasons.
But vanish they have – not just the containers but also the owner and the entire staff of Dubai’s Al Rawnaq Al Thahbhi General Trading which ordered around 6,000 tonnes of rice from 20 odd exporters in India between March and April this year.
To give you an idea, 6,000 tonnes of rice can feed UAE’s entire population of 9.68 million for almost five days.
250 shipping containers of cereal grain worth over Dh15 million stolen in audacious trading fraud
Scam leaves scores of Indian exporters devastated and baffled at the same time
23 TTs worth $4.13 million cancelled after cheques issued against them bounce
Conman who projected himself as multi-millionaire business owner disappears without a trace
Dubai: For the past few weeks, several rice exporters from India have been camping in Dubai, trying to get to the bottom of an audacious Dh15.38 million scam that has left them baffled and devastated at the same time.
So far the traders haven’t had any luck. Understandably, their patience is beginning to wear thin.
“What is at stake here are not some small packets but nearly 250 rice shipping containers measuring 20 X 8 feet each. Put end to end they could occupy a football field,” says an exasperated Vipin Goel, managing director of Kamla Rice and General Mills in Karnal, a city located in the north Indian state of Haryana.
“So many shipping containers can’t disappear from a warehouse just like that,” Goel reasons.
But vanish they have – not just the containers but also the owner and the entire staff of Dubai’s Al Rawnaq Al Thahbhi General Trading which ordered around 6,000 tonnes of rice from 20 odd exporters in India between March and April this year.
To give you an idea, 6,000 tonnes of rice can feed UAE’s entire population of 9.68 million for almost five days.
y the time panic-stricken traders rushed to Dubai, it was too late. Al Rawnaq’s rented warehouse in Al Quoz where the rice containers were delivered was empty as was the company’s office at XL Tower in Business Bay.
It’s not that the exporters didn’t do their due diligence.
“We visited Al Rawnaq Al Thahbhi’s office, checked its trade license, met its general manager and, more importantly, released the shipments only after we had received telex transfer (TT) receipts from a money exchange in Dubai confirming the acceptance of the remittance request and the initiation of the transaction,” recalls Vinod Goel of Karnal’s NM Food Impex company. He shipped 22 containers of Basmati rice worth $321,170 -- around $7,000 less than Kamla Mills’ Vipin who dispatched 17 containers.
SOURCE : GULFNEWS