It will soon be a year since a 37-year-old specification analyst from Circonstance, Saint Pierre, began waiting for delivery of his kitchen furniture. He had already paid the sum of Rs 260,000 to a carpenter who had started work in August of that year. But the carpenter is nowhere to be found. He tried in vain to contact him. Finally realizing that he had been duped, in the early evening of Monday June 5, he went to the Saint Pierre police station to report a case of embezzlement.
In August 2022, the thirty-year-old had contacted the carpenter to manufacture kitchen furniture for his second home at VRS 2, L’Avenir, Saint Pierre. On Thursday, August 18, 2022, at around 11 a.m., the man had come to take measurements in his kitchen. He had made a quotation for an amount of Rs 300,000. He asked the owner to make a down payment of Rs 255,000, which he did by bank transfer.
It was agreed that delivery would take place in December 2022. On Monday June 27, 2022, the owner called the carpenter on his cell phone and they agreed that delivery would take place in January 2023. The owner had made a further payment of Rs 5,000 by bank transfer for the purchase of the accessories. The carpenter guaranteed that the furniture would be delivered on Saturday June 3, 2023.
Before this deadline, on Wednesday May 31, he tried to contact the carpenter. The carpenter has been unreachable ever since. The victim named a resident of Circonstance, Saint Pierre as a witness in this transaction.
