Noida: Handset makers arrested for fraud

NOIDA: The owners of a smartphone manufacturing firm were arrested on Sunday for allegedly siphoning off Rs 3.27 crore from Noida-based Ringing Bells but failing to deliver smartphones named Freedom 251. The accused — Vikas Sharma (35) — is the director of Vie Technology Private Limited, which manufactures cellphones in Delhi.

His associate, Jitendra Harwani alias Jeetu (40), was also arrested. A second associate, Shatrughan Prasad, is absconding. Noida police said the two accused were produced in court and sent to judicial custody.

Mohit Goel, managing director of Ringing Bells, had filed a case against them in Sector 49 police station on November 23. He said his firm had planned to deliver smartphones to people at Rs 251 in 2015. The domestic handset maker’s irresistible offer was an overnight sensation, with around 7.50 crore people pre-booking their sets. A countrywide response also led to the website’s crash.

The scheme, though, was soon mired in controversy, as Ringing Bell’s distributors filed cases against Goel for cheating in Ghaziabad. He was arrested and sent to judicial custody for six months in February, and only released on bail on August 27.

Goel blamed Sharma and his accomplice for not delivering smartphones to customers. He said he had met Sharma in August 2015, when the latter had demonstrated smartphones on his website. “Vikas claimed he owns a factory and office in China and would deliver each smartphone at Rs 1,080. I collaborated with some mobile apps to provide the handsets at subsidized rates,” Mohit told TOI.

Goel said he first transferred Rs 35 lakh through RTGS to Vikas. “By January 2016, I had transferred Rs 3.27 crore on his company account. However, the accused siphoned off the money and did not deliver the goods. Every time I asked him about the smartphones, he made some excuse,” he said.

Goel said that on repeated reminders Sharma dispatched smartphones worth Rs 1.23 crore, which were of poorer quality than the sample shown. “My distributors started complaining. I asked Sharma to return my balance payment, since the sets were no good. He gave two cheques worth Rs 1 crore each, both of which bounced,” he said.

Meanwhile, Harwani and Prasad started ignoring his calls. Then in February, Goel got arrested. After his release, Goel again contacted Sharma to ask him for his money, but was “threatened”. “I served jail because these people hadn’t delivered the handsets,” he said. He filed an FIR against Sharma, Harwani and Prasad for cheating, fraud and criminal conspiracy, under sections 406, 420, 467, 468, 471, 506 and 120B of IPC.

Sharma denied the allegations and said he had delivered more handsets than what he had been paid for. “Goel is trying to clean up his image by levelling allegations against us. We’d delivered smartphones worth Rs 2.75 crore against payment of Rs 2.27 crore. I have documents for this,” he said.

With Ringing Bells’s Noida office closed, Goel has opened a new one in Delhi. He said he’s still committed to delivering the handsets to customers. “I’m now entering into a new venture. I’ll not disclose details at this stage. But by April-May 2018, I’ll provide mobile phones to all those who had booked Freedom 251,” he told TOI.