Visakhapatnam police today unearthed a racket of diversion of imported coal from the port here and arrested 11 persons in this connection.
Visakhapatnam police today unearthed a racket of diversion of imported coal from the port here and arrested 11 persons in this connection.
"We have arrested 11 persons including two supervisors of two private companies who were indulged in diversion of imported coal from the port here and selling it to other places as far as Bihar," deputy commissioner of police (crimes) J Brahma Reddy said.
Following a complaint from Sharat Chatterji & Company, which deals in transportation and lease of imported coal, that actual delivery of coal was not taking place and that they suspected diversion of coal which resulted in a loss of coal worth over Rs3 crore to them, the police registered a case and initiated investigations.
According to the complainant, the coal imported from Australia which was supposed to reach the godowns of Tirupati Fuels Pvt Ltd at Parvada near Visakhapatnam was diverted.
During the probe, it was detected that two supervisors Ramana Murthy (Sharat Chatterji & Co) and Swaroop (Tirupati Fuels) had "colluded" and were allegedly diverting one truck load out of three truck loads during transportation for the past one month and had so far diverted 30 truck loads of coal, the DCP said.
The market price of each truck load is around Rs3 lakh, but the accused used to sell it between Rs1.5 lakh and Rs1.6 lakh, the senior police officer said adding, "the stolen coal was being sold to buyers in Bihar, Pune and other parts of Andhra Pradesh."
Following the confession of the duo, the police arrested nine others including some buyers and have seized five trucks, two cars, 25 metric tonnes of diverted coal and Rs11.51 lakh cash from them.
Police have registered a case under IPC Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 407 (criminal breach of trust by carrier), 408 (criminal breach of trust by clerk or servant) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy).
All the arrested were today produced before a local court and sent to judicial remand.
The DCP said they were also investigating into diversion of other imported items from the Visakhapatnam port that includes fertiliser, iron-ore, sugar and other items.
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