Rs. 400 cr. fraud in coffee market?

By Our Staff Correspondent

MADIKERI, MARCH 10. Coffee, considered to be the lifeline of Kodagu, which accounts for over 40 per cent of the country's production, has now turned out to be a ``crisis crop'' as its price has plummeted to a new low. The product was made a tool by some middlemen to cheat the unsuspecting growers, to the extent of over Rs. 400 crores in the last one year.

Disclosing statistics at a meeting of the coffee growers here on Friday, Mr. B.B.Subbaiah, member of the Coffee Board, said: ``Nearly Rs. 400 crores fraud has occurred in the last one year, thanks to the boom in coffee business.''

Later, speaking to The Hindu, he said the fraud had taken place right from Wayanad in Kerala to Chikmagalur, covering Kodagu District and Sakleshpur in Hassan District.

Mr. Subbaiah said that Rs. 76 crores fraud had occurred in Sakleshpur alone. People who would act as ``businessmen'' first made the growers believe they were genuine by making prompt payments on purchase over and above the prevailing price. Without any forethought, the grower would part with huge stocks to the middlemen, who one day would run away with real hefty sums.

He said the money which should have been in circulation in the market had been simply laundered. It had tremendously upset the socio-economic pattern in the coffee growing belts, particularly Kodagu District, he added.

Indeed, the growers, who had borrowed loans from banks and financial institutions in Kodagu in the expectation of a bumper crop and a good price, were in trouble. Many of them had been cheated by persons well known to them.

Robbery of coffee bags had occurred in broad daylight, thanks to the bumper price it fetched four years ago. Efforts were made by some motorcyclists to fire at a person who was carrying cash from the bank after he had sold the coffee. Luckily he escaped with gun shot injuries.

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