印度全球最便宜手機制造商被控涉嫌欺詐

The director of Ringing Bells, the Indian firm which claimed to be selling the world's cheapest smartphone, has been arrested on allegations of fraud.

號稱售賣全球最便宜手機的印度手機制造商響鈴公司的負責人因欺詐罪於日前被捕。

Mohit Goel was held after one of the phone's distributors claimed it had not received handsets it had paid for.

在一家分銷商公司聲稱未收到已付款的手機後，莫希特·戈埃爾遭到了逮捕。

The Freedom 251 phone, priced at 251 rupees ($3.70), went on pre-sale in February 2016.

這款“自由251”手機，定價251盧比（約合3.7美元），於2016年2月預售。

But while many customers got their phones, Ringing Bells is accused of not fulfilling all of its orders.

不過，在許多顧客收到了手機後，響鈴公司卻被指控未能如數發貨。

The distribution company, Ayam Enterprises, said it paid 3m rupees ($45,000) after Mr Goel persuaded it to distribute the phone. But only 1.4m-worth of devices were delivered.

經銷商亞揚公司表示，在戈埃爾勸說其經銷這款手機後，該公司訂購了價值3百萬盧比（約合4.5萬美元）的貨。但是最終僅收到了140萬盧比的貨。

Police spokesman Rahul Srivastava confirmed the arrest to the BBC. "A number of similar complaints have been filed against him from other parts of the state. We want to investigate these claims thoroughly," he said.

警方發言人拉胡爾·斯里瓦斯塔瓦向BBC證實已逮捕了莫希特·戈埃爾。他說：“在其他地方也出現了許多類似的指控。我們希望能徹查此案。”

"It's important for us to expose these scams because innocent people end up losing their hard-earned money. We are seeing an increasing number of technology-related frauds. I appeal to people to be sure before investing money into such schemes."

“我們揭穿這些詐騙的把戲是非常重要的，無辜的人們就不會再拿着他們的血汗錢上當受騙。科技詐騙日益增多。我在此呼籲人們在購買前要注意，避免掉入此類陷阱。”