About 40 entrepreneurs say they lost around 700 million tenge selling Chinese cars in Kazakhstan, reports infohub.kz.
The businessmen bought cars in China and handed them over to one of Almaty's car dealerships for sale. However, after the cars were sold, the owners never received the money.
One of the victims is Nurzhan Boshtai. According to him, two months ago he brought two Changan CS55 Plus crossovers. The cars were sold through the dealership, but the entrepreneur never received his 18 million tenge.
The man claims that his cars were resold multiple times. As a result, one of the cars changed owners three times during this period and is now under a lien.
According to the entrepreneurs, about 40 resellers faced a similar problem. All of them worked with the same car dealership.
The entrepreneurs claim that the owner had three locations, and the scheme could have been operating for over a year. After selling the cars, the dealership owner stopped communicating. The building itself, they say, was sealed about two weeks ago.
After the victims contacted the police, the suspect was placed in a temporary detention facility. A criminal case was opened for fraud committed on an especially large scale. The circle of people involved in the crime is currently being established.
If found guilty, the dealership owner faces up to seven years in prison.
But the entrepreneurs are more worried about their money and cars. Many of them took loans to buy the cars and now have to look for another source of income.
Earlier, Kursiv Avto reported how a manager of the Sanzhar Rulit car dealership in Almaty received six years for fraud.