Indian conman escapes to Hyderabad on emergency repatriation flight after cheating business men of USD 1.6 million

An Indian man, who cheated nearly 50 businessmen in the UAE of USD 1.6 million, escaped on a repatriation flight to Hyderabad, the Gulf News reported. It was on a Vande Bharat repatriation flight on May 11 with around 170 expatriates, Yogesh Ashok Yariava, the prime accused in the fraud, escaped from Abu Dhabi to Hyderabad, India.

According to reports, Yariava, the 36-year-old owner of the counterfeit Royal Luck Foodstuff Trading, shopped worth 6 million dirhams (USD 1.6 million) against post-dated cheques from naive traders before fleeing to India, the daily said.

The purchased cargo listed as facemasks, hand sanitisers, medical gloves (worth nearly 5,00,000 dirhams), rice and nuts (3,93,000 dirhams), tuna, pistachios and saffron (3,00,725 dirhams), French fries and mozzarella cheese (2,29,000 dirhams), frozen Indian beef (2,07,000 dirhams) and halwa and tahina (52,812 dirhams). As the number of victims has increasingly come forward and filed cases with the Bur Dubai police station India’s Consul-General in Dubai Vipul intervened in the matter and assured all possible help to victims.

“We will get in touch with people who have apparently been duped by an Indian conman and extend all possible help,” Vipul told PTI on Saturday.

Vipul said that he hasn’t yet received a request for a meeting regarding this case so far.

He also said that those who were victimized by the fraudster “should have also approached local authorities earlier and taken preemptive action to stop the person from travelling out of UAE”.

Advocate Salam Pappinisseri, who is representing five of the cheated firms, said, “Yariava, originally from Mumbai, absconded from the UAE with large amounts of money on an emergency evacuation flight. It”s strange that the fraudster got a seat on the flight which was meant to bring stranded Indian citizens who had registered with the Indian embassy and consulate requesting repatriation on urgent grounds.”

Skydent Medical Equipment Trading LLC, one of the companies allegedly duped by Yariava, has lost all its earnings as a result of this fraud.

The co-owner of the business, Neetu Chandrashekharan, told PTI that the company was asked to supply masks on May 6 and was given a post-dated cheque worth 175,857 dirhams that was to be encashed on May 19.

“We supplied 2,500 boxes of face masks at a cost of 67 dirhams per box as ordered. But when we deposited the cheque for encashment, we were told that the bank account doesn’t have sufficient cash,” Chandrashekharan said.

According to her, the company found out that they had been duped when her husband went to the warehouse and found others with similar complaints.