Kazakh entrepreneurs who resell Chinese electric cars say they have lost 700 million tenge due to fraud by a car dealership owner, reports infohub.kz.
Forty entrepreneurs from Almaty who resell Chinese cars claim they fell victim to fraud by the dealership owner. They say they were promised that their cars would be sold and the proceeds shared with them.
"He called me and said he needed a Changan CS55 Plus, that there were clients in Shymkent: 'We'll return the money in 3-4 days, we already have clients.' Okay, fine. We brought two cars here. They were sold. That was on June 12. Now it's August, two months have passed. And we still haven't seen the money," said entrepreneur Nurzhan Boshtai.
After that, according to the reseller, his cars continued to be resold. During this time, the car changed owners three times, and the vehicle is now in lien. It is reported that at least 40 resellers faced a similar problem, all of whom dealt with the same dealership.
"We knew that the dealership owner had been a fraudster before. If he had contacted us directly, we wouldn't have given him money or cars. So he sent agents instead. As far as we know, he had three dealerships. I think he's been deceiving people for over a year," shared entrepreneur Adil Bekzhan.
The dealership premises, according to the resellers, were sealed two weeks ago. Before that, for a month, Chinese cars were displayed for sale there. Now the gates are closed, and there are no cars on the premises.
The entrepreneurs filed a complaint with the police, and the same day the dealership owner was detained. "The suspect was detained and placed in a temporary detention facility. A criminal case has been opened on charges of fraud committed on an especially large scale. Currently, the circle of other possible individuals involved in criminal offenses is being established," said official representative of the Almaty Police Department, Saltanat Azirbek.
It is noted that the dealership owner faces up to seven years in prison.