UAE businessmen track down fraudster in India

Dubai, Apr 26: Two UAE-based Indian businessmen tracked down a man to Kerala who was believed to be part of a gang that cheated people out of millions of dirhams through bogus trading companies.

Indian police yesterday released the man Jabbar Manjakkandi in Kannur district in India, two days after he was arrested on Monday as there was no formal case registered against him there.

According to local police Manjakkandi and several others were said to have set up bogus trading companies and purchased consignments of goods by paying cheques that later bounced.

Emirates Today newspaper, which published Manjakkandi's picture on February 27 after he allegedly used a stolen passport to open companies in UAE, said several businessmen came forward after seeing the photo complaining they had been swindled by the same person.

Two of them traced Manjakkandi to Kannur and tipped off local police, who arrested him immediately but they could not detain him.

The fraud emerged when Kiran Tontai, 30, was arrested by Ajman police in February under suspicion of issuing fake cheques, but investigations revealed him as an innocent victim whose identity had been stolen.

Tontai lost his passport six years before and it was thought Manjakkandi might have acquired it, replaced the picture with his own and used it to open business and bank accounts.

UNI