Hyderabad: A former IBM employee has been arrested for taking cars, worth crores of rupees, on lease and not paying the vehicle owners.

Police said 30-year-old Sheikh Umar Alisha from Palakollu town of West Godavari had illegal possession of 34 cars worth Rs 3 crore, and he earned lakhs of rupees by renting and selling these cars.

He and his two associates led a lavish lifestyle with the money. In order to convince the car owners, Umar had advertised his fake firm, ‘7 cabs Pvt Ltd’ on Quickr.com and Sulekha.com, offering high returns on the leased cars.

Central Crime Station police arrested him on Tuesday and recovered the cars, which included Toyota Innovas, Mahindra Scorpios and Hyundai Vernas. His two associates, Srinivasa Reddy from Allagadda Town in Kurnool District and Rakesh Kumar Reddy from Proddatur in Kadapa District, are absconding.

Additional commissioner of police Ms Swathi Lakra said that Umar would tell car owners that his company needed the vehicles to ply on the IT corridor for big companies and he would give higher returns.

“The victims were his acquaintances as he used to take cars from them earlier while he was working. After taking the cars from them, he started renting them out and earned extra money. However, he did not pay the owners,” she said.

Umar also forged documents of a few vehicles and changed the registrations. He also sold a few cars. He ran his illegal business for more than two years before he was caught by the CCS police.

Umar, an MCA graduate, was working in the HR department of IBM before quitting. Earlier, Umar and three others had cheated several people while running a job consultancy agency named Task Informatics. Madhapur Police had then arrested him and he was out on bail.