Rs. 75 Crores Scammed at Fake Toll Plaza in Gujarat
A fake toll plaza on the Bamanbore-Kutch national highway in the Morbi district of Gujarat has scammed commuters for more than 1.5 years and collected almost ?75 crores.
With the growing population, the types of scams are also increasing in India. People all around the country are looking to scam people to make easy money. One such recent incident is of a fake toll plaza of Gujarat. As the name of the scam suggests, a group of individuals were operating a fake toll plaza on the Bamanbore-Kutch national highway in the Morbi district of Gujarat for more than 1.5 years. Many government officials, commuters, and police were cheated throughout the years. According to a published NDTV report, the toll was being operated on private land and used to charge toll fees at half the standard rate to defraud commuters and even the local law enforcement and high-ranking government officials of the district. The private landowners in Morbi were cheating thousands of rupees daily from all commuters for almost 1.5 years. The district collector of Morbi, Mr. GT Pandya said that their administration received information about the toll tax being collected at the said location by diverting vehicles from the actual route of the Varghasia toll plaza. Mr. Pandya immediately filed a detailed complaint and requested the police and other officials to reach the toll plaza and investigate the case. According to the reports, the property bypasses the national highway which made it the right location to deviate traffic from the regular routes and private enough to collect tolls from the commuters. Collecting only half of the toll tax was the main trick of the scammers. The half toll tax tempted truck drivers, officials and commuters to take this route and made it easy for the scammers to go unnoticed. As per the details, the toll charged Rs 20 to Rs 200 from car owners to heavy truck drivers against the actual toll tax of Rs 110 to Rs 595. While investigating, the police discovered that the land property was owned by a White House Ceramic Company which is now shut. The owner of the company Amarshi Patel and his group are considered as ‘strongmen’ of the area. As per the reports, the ‘strongmen’ were able to dupe almost ?75 crores as ‘toll’ from the commuters over 1.5 years. The Police has registered a complaint against the White House Ceramic factory owner Amarshi Patel and four others who have been identified as Harvijay Singh Jhala, Yuvraj Singh Jhala, Vanraj Singh Jhala, and Dharmendra Singh Jhala.
