| Three people have been arrested in connection with a Rs. 17 million fraud at a firm importing chocolates and energy drinks in Pettah, a senior officer at the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) said yesterday.
These three employees of the firm had allegedly defrauded the owner by pilfering stocks from the stores and later selling them in their own shops, thereby causing financial losses as well as attracting customers to their shops, Assistant Superintedent of Police Jagath Weerakoon told the Sunday Times.
He said the owner of the shop had got suspicious when the number of customers to his shop had dropped drastically prompting him to take an inventory of the stocks in his shop. It was then that he detected the shortage.
“Customers told the owner of the shop that they were able to buy the same items at lower prices from different shops,” ASP Weerakoon said.
He said, the CCD and the Keselwatte police in their investigations found that the items sold at a lower price were those pilfered from the main company.
“They had sold the items not only in Colombo, but also in places like Jaffna, Trincomalee, Puttalam and Anuradhapura,” he said.
So far items to the value of Rs. three million have been recovered from these stores.
The three suspects were produced in Courts and were granted Rs. 50,000 cash bail and Rs one million surety bail for each of them. |
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