Man takes high-end bike for test ride, never returns

On the pretext of a test ride, a stranger sped away on a high-end bike that was put up for sale on an online classified portal.

The incident occurred at Marathahalli on Monday.  Naveen, a hotelier, had put up an ad on a portal. He had incurred huge losses and wanted to sell his bike to repay loans.

On Monday, a man approached Naveen stating that he was interested in buying the bike and sought a test-ride. Naveen handed over the bike along with photocopies of bike documents to the ‘buyer.’ The man took the bike for a test ride. As he did not return even after an hour, Naveen grew suspicious. After a search for almost an hour and verifying CCTV footage from a shop, Naveen came to know that his bike was stolen. He lodged a complaint with the Marathahalli police.

Held for fraud

The Cyber Crime police on Wednesday arrested two persons who were cheating customers on an online portal posing themselves as car sellers.

The arrested have been identified has Augustine (42), a native of Nigeria and a resident of Bidarahalli here. An associate of Augustine, identified as Jagadish, has  been arrested for facilitating sim cards for him, the police said.

Augustine used to post  ads on a popular portal with a photo of a Maruti Swift car, quoting a low price. When customers approached him, Augustine asked them to transfer a partial amount to an account. After the client transfered the money, Augustine would go untraceable.

Jagadish, who works at a mobile phone shop, was helping Augustine in getting him sim cards without collecting necessary documents from him. Jagadish activated sim cards by forging documents, which helped Augustine in the fraud, police said.