Pune: Paud police have registered a case against three people, including two women, for allegedly cheating an automobile parts manufacturing firm of Rs 3 crore by creating fake invoices for raw material between April 2023 and Feb 2026.The firm’s factory manager lodged a complaint with the Paud police. The suspects include an employee of the company and two women owners of a Taloja-based firm.An officer from the Pune Rural police said the complainant’s company has procured metal sheets of different grades from the Taloja-based company since 2021.One of the suspects was working in the firm’s stores department and maintained records of incoming material, submitting bills to the accounts department and checking payments to suppliers.In Dec last year, while checking its records, the firm found that a large quantity of material had allegedly been shown as sent to a company in Pirangut. However, the quantity of material actually received from the firm was less. It triggered a check for records, which revealed that there was no balance stock of the material at the company and that several entries in the system had been altered.“The firm then examined the invoices and found that several bills did not have matching weighbridge receipts. It was also found that these receipts had been replaced with weighbridge slips of the Taloja-based firm,” the officer said.During an internal inquiry, the firm questioned an engineer from the purchasing team, an assistant manager from the design team and a stores department employee. All three denied having any knowledge of the altered entries. The company subsequently appointed a lawyer to conduct the inquiry.“Two of the employees appeared for the inquiry before the lawyer, but the suspect failed to turn up and allegedly went missing without informing the company,” the officer said.During the inquiry, the two employees told the company that the suspect had obtained their user IDs and passwords. The officer said the company subsequently examined invoices generated by the suspect over the last three years.The officer found that between April 2023 and Feb 2026, the Taloja-based company was supposed to supply 1,870 tonnes of metal sheets against a demand of 2,788 tonnes. However, 546 tonnes of sheets were allegedly never received by the firm. It was worth nearly Rs 3 crore.“The accused used different employees’ IDs to create fake invoices showing that the 546 tonnes had been received. The accounts department subsequently made payments to the Taloja-based company,” the officer said.The officer said the investigation also revealed the alleged involvement of the two women owners of the Taloja-based company.“We have registered a case under Sections of cheating, criminal breach of trust and forgery of the BNS and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act,” he said.
