Marine Claims > Nature of Frauds

Case Study-I

Manipulation of GR’s, Purchase Bills, Gate passes etc.

1. One of the famous rice exporter in India (based on Delhi) had Claimsd a loss of around Rs.15.00 Crors. According to their claim, the stocks of rice intended to export, was kept at Kandla Port was washed out in cyclone on 8th June 1998. W visited the site and the insured had showed us some damaged bags of rice consignment and provided all the relevant documents. On verification, we observed that the following documents were manipulated :

• On verification of purchase bills from the seller/supplier, it was observed that all the purchase bills were fake and were arranged subsequently as an after though when we visited the premises of supplier.


• On verification of GRs, we verified the truck numbers mentioned in the GR from the respective Transport Authorities and it was observed that all (49) numbers were pertaining to three wheelers or scoters only and not pertaining to any truck, which proved that rice consignment bags can never be carried in two wheelers, hence was a fake number written on GRs & records.


• The insured had failed to prove their loss as the trading account also and we finally reputed the claim, since the stocks as per trading a/s were showing the negative balances.

Case Study-2

We handled one claim, in which reportedly one consignment of 148 Quintals of Mustard oil, which was transported from Agra to Berelly was hijacked during the transit along with the truck and the truck was recovered by the police after one week.

To ascertain the geneunity of the case, we conducted a lot of investigations at various places and observed that:

• The transporter’s name mentioned in the GR was nos existent.


• There was no weighment slip or other evidences to proves the quantity dispatched from the consignor site.


• Based on the records of the consignor, it was observed that they are dealing with the consignee for first time and the payment was not made to them.


• On asking about the transporter, the consignee alleges that the consignor had arranged the truck. However consignor denied the same, so both of them denied having arranged the truck.


• According to the circumstances of loss explained by the truck driver was also doubt full that during the transit at about 11.30am, he stopped the truck under a tree on road side and slept near to the truck and when he woke up he noticed that the truck was missing from there.
  


• Finally it was also observed that the tanker having three chambers and the capacity of each tankers were 400 Ltrs and the total capacity of th tanker was 12000 Ltrs and they were claiming 14800 Ltrs. Which is clearly proving the facts otherwise. By correlating all the evidences, we also reputed the claim.

Case Study-3

4. One claim, reportedly on tanker carrying 16180 Ltrs valuing around Rs.5.0 crores of alleged plant & roof hormones (Super stim) met with accident near Keshavpura, Jaunpur (UP) and the tanker was over turned and fell down in a pound at the road side. On verification of documents and circumstances, we observed that:

2. Machinery

• Inspite of the preliminary surveyors request, the tanker remained in the pound about 6 days.
• The packing of such costly item was not properly made. The top inlets covered were closed simply by threaded caps and no sealing was done.
• The truck was an ordinary tanker which carrying petroleum products and the material “Super Stim” needs to be stored at low temperature (10-150C) and in dark, the solution is stable only for about a week and special refrigerated tanker required for such kind of stocks.
• The samples collected from the tanker shows the material inside was not “Super stim”
• We visited the insured’s premises and found that the premises was being used by the insured’s father long back for manufacturing sprinkler system.
• The insured had issued 04 cheques of total amount of Rs.4,80,00,000/- to M/s. Surgi Dia Supplier of “Super Stim”. But the cheques were undated and the bank officials confirmed that the cheques issue without proper balances.
• On verification it was also found that the transport company was not existing.

Based on our verifications, we reputed the claim also.

Case Study-4

In one case of marine consignment of shirts to be exported from Jaipur to USSR was alleged to be missing along with Truck causing loss to the insured. The value of consignment was fifty lacs. We were appointed to investigate the facts and our finds were:

• The consignment order from USSR was never received
• The consignment raw material was never procured.
• The tailoring/ sewing bills were all fake.
• The transport never existed
• The shirts were never produced
• The truck was never missing.

Case Study-5

In one case, the world famous rice exporter from India had dispatched one consignment to Nigeria. The consignment was damaged during the transit from Kandla port to Neigeria Port (in the vessel). The insured had lodged their claim with Indian Insurance Company. We were appointed and conducted our verifications and we observed that:

The Policy was on FOB Basis upto Kandla Port from X insurance company and another policy was taken from Y company on CIF basis

The Invoice copy provided to us was on CIF basis by the insured

The actual documents such as copy of original Invoice sent to bank was on C&F- Kandla Port basis and not on CIF Nigeria basis. Since the loss occurred in between Kandla Port to Nigeria, the loss was Claimsd under Y company policy whereas actually the contract of sale & invoice in the bank records was on C&F basis. On minute verification of documents such as Invoice, Sale contract given to us by the insured showed some alterations in typing also.

Case Study-6

In One case, one exporting company had Claimsd that their various CDs worth around Rs. 40 Crores which were washed out in the Cyclone of. We thoroughly verified the documents and conducted investigations and found that the trucks which carried the consignment from Sahibabd to kandla port never reached at Kandla Port and they reached only upto Ahmedabad. All the GRs and other documents shows the consignments was delivered at Ahmedabad.

Case Study-7

In one case, electric items were imported at Bombay by the A trader who sold them to other B firm in Delhi, The documents were sent through bank for negotiation and the B firm in Delhi lodged a claim on insurance company claiming looting of truck n the way near Delhi. The investigation proves that:

f. The supplier firm A at Bombay was fake

g. Transport GR was arranged only

h. The documents sent through bank were returned bank unpaid.

i. The truck showed as recovered later near Delhi showed few boxes with some electric parts remainents, but those were completely different from invoices.

Area of Disputes.

• Assessment of Loss- Partial % basis or total Salvage
• In case of machinery- Repair or Replacement
• Cost determination in case of reprocessing or normal Claimsd 7 allowed
• Basis of valuation (in case declared value is less than the Invoice Value/cost)
• Salvage value determination
• Determination of shortage vs normal shortage during the transit
• Nature of packing
• In case of glass/ paper/ aluminum/ ms sheets, it was possible to use the safe portion after removing the damaged portion, but the same would disputes many times.
• Survey fee .
• Quantification of loss, in to safe, damaged wet etc.

Case Study-8

Manipulation of GR’s, Purchase Bills, Gate passes etc.

1. One of the famous rice exporter in India (based on Delhi) had Claimsd a loss of around Rs.15.00 Crors. According to their claim, the stocks of rice intended to export, was kept at Kandla Port was washed / damaged in cyclone on 8th June 1998. W visited the site and the insured had showed us some damaged bags of rice consignment and provided all the relevant documents. On verification, we observed that the following documents were manipulated :

4. On verification of purchase bills from the seller/supplier, it was observed that all the purchase bills were fake and were arranged subsequently as an after thought when we visited the premises of supplier.

5. On verification of GRs, we verified the truck numbers mentioned in the GR from the respective Transport Authorities and it was observed that all (49) numbers were pertaining to three wheelers or scoters only and not pertaining to any truck, which proved that rice consignment bags can never be carried in two wheelers, hence was a fake number written on GRs & records.

6. The insured had failed to prove their loss as per the trading account also and we finally reputed the claim, since the stocks as per trading a/s were showing the negative balances.

Which means the damaged stocks physically shown to us pertaining to some other client and not insured’s..as the invoice

Case Study-9

We handled one claim, in which reportedly one consignment of 148 Quintals of Mustard oil, which was transported from Agra to Berelly was hijacked during the transit along with the truck and the truck was recovered by the police after one week.

To ascertain the geneunity of the case, we conducted a lot of investigations at various places and observed that:

• The transporter’s name mentioned in the GR was not existing (transporter).
• There was no weighment slip or other evidences to proves the quantity dispatched from the consignor site (Weighment slip was nt available).
• Based on the records of the consignor, it was observed that they are dealing with the consignee for first time and the payment was not made to them. So how he could give credit to consignee?
• On asking about the transporter, the consignee alleges that the consignor had arranged the truck. However consignor denied the same, so both of them denied having arranged the truck.
• According to the circumstances of loss explained by the truck driver was also doubt full that during the transit at about 11.30am, he stopped the truck under a tree on road side and slept near to the truck and when he woke up he noticed that the truck was missing from there. (Circumstances doubtful)
• Finally it was also observed that the tanker having three chambers and the capacity of each tankers were 4000 Ltrs and the total capacity of th tanker was 12000 Ltrs and they were claiming 14800 Ltrs. Which is clearly proving the facts otherwise (Capacity violation).

By correlating all the evidences, we also reputed the claim.

Case Study-10

In a recent case, one party had purchased two banner printing machines from a Faridabad based company and while transporting the same to the destination, the truck got fire and the consignment damaged. From the beginning we have doubts on the claim and we conducted detailed investigation and we found that:

We visited the manufacturers premises and found that that there was no infrastructure available to manufacture such machines.

Consignor has made his first sales and that too to a new entrant in the trade. The consignor has been registered with the sales tax department wef 12.08.08 but this was the first bill raised by the consignor in 2009.

The GR was fake and there is no such transporter existing in address mentioned in the GR.

The consignor have their registered office at Delhi and most of the items (parts) were purchased at Delhi Office and transferred to Faridabad through transfer challans and we proved that all the transfer challans are fake.

The consignor informed that they have self developed this machine in their Faridabad unit. For which they appointed a team of Engineers from 02.04.2007. However they have make the first purchase of material/ parts on 28.08.08 and they have showing the payment of Engineers form Aril 2007 without any work, Moreover they have changed the team of engineers eight times during the so called development of machine, which is also not possible.

On verification of purchase bills of the consignor, we observed the the purchase bills are fake.

The Order for the captioned machine was placed on 21.02.09, however they are showing the advance payments from 20.06.2008

The incident happened at 3.0am, however the fire brigade was intimated only 4.am,

There was not much burnt marks inside the truck.