New Delhi Jan 26 PTI A 42-year-old man who allegedly cheated a vehicle finance company to the tune of over Rs 218 crore was arrested three years after he went into hiding police said on Wednesday They said a case was registered against the accused Pramod Singh a resident of Gurugram in 2018 following a complaint by the finance company According to the police Singh initially borrowed Rs 275 lakh from the firm to purchase a Mercedes Benz car and paid the initial installments After gaining the financers trust he took four more loans and continued to pay the installments for some time only to abruptly stop them later Police said some officials in the transport department were hand in gloves with Singh According to the complainant Singh owes the firm Rs 21834853 He was absconding for the last three years and non-bailable warrants were issued against him He was arrested from Gurugram recently after a long chase and surveillance Chhaya Sharma Joint Commissioner of Police Economic Offences Wing said It is also alleged that the accused removed the name of the complainant company as financier from registration certificates of the vehicles by forging the documents despite the vehicles being hypothecated and financed by the complainant company she said The officer said Singh purchased five Mercedes cars over three years and all of them were financed by the same firm She said some officials in the transport department got the hypothecated status of the vehicles deleted from the records after which he could fraudulently sell the cars to second-hand car dealers Hypothecation is the practice of pledging an asset cars in this case to the financer while applying for a loan The financer keeps the asset as collateral until the dues are cleared Such vehicles cannot be sold without a No Objection Certificate from the lender Police said Singh was running a business of providing transportation services to call centres in Gurugram and hence owned a fleet of luxury cars However he suffered losses as several call centres were shut down and hence forged the vehicle documents in order to recover his money PTI AMP CJ CJ