Rakesh, a former employee of the Ducati Bengaluru showroom, has been arrested for allegedly cheating the company out of Rs 5 crores. Rakesh, who had worked at the VST Ducati bike showroom for 5 years as the Head of Operations, resigned on October 20th, just three weeks before his arrest.
The fraud came to light when several customers complained that they couldn't register their bikes with the Regional Transport Office (RTO). An audit revealed that Rakesh had sold a total of 21 Ducati bikes between July 2019 and September 2022. However, none of these sales were recorded in the company's official records, and the approximately Rs 5.2 crores collected from these sales were not deposited in the company's bank accounts.
General Manager CN Mahesh filed a complaint, stating that Rakesh had collected money from 21 customers and deposited it in various bank accounts, including one under the name 'Office Facility Suppliers.' The scam involved various Ducati models, each with a price tag between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 40 lakh, including Ducati Panigale, Multistrada, Diavel, Monster, Desert X, Scrambler, and Streetfighter.
While Rakesh has been arrested, authorities are also investigating the involvement of other insiders in the scam. Procedures such as inventory checks, sales and delivery notes, and invoice details that should have been sent to the RTO were not followed.
Ducati offers a range of 22 bikes in India, categorized into sports, cruiser, sport-naked, café racers, and adventure tourers. The company has recently introduced new models and an incredibly powerful single-cylinder engine named the Superquadro.