Dubai Ship Buyer and Indian Recycler Fight Cloned Fraud Claims Spread Across 22 Websites

The companies are Best Oasis, a Dubai-based cash buyer of ships and energy assets, and Priya Blue Industries, which operates ship-recycling yards in Alang, Gujarat. Gulf News, which reviewed the police progress report along with legal notices and correspondence, said the articles named the firms and their owners and appeared across several unrelated websites with almost the same wording and photographs and only the headlines changed.

The case shows how cheaply a reputational attack can now be mounted against a company in a trade where speed and compliance clearance decide deals. Gaurav Mehta, chief executive and director of Best Oasis and SPM Shipping, told Gulf News that some business dealings were delayed and subjected to extra compliance checks after the articles began circulating, and that in a market where bids move quickly such delays can cost opportunities. He said the concerns were eventually resolved through existing relationships and the companies' legal response.

Mehta said the firms first learnt of the articles not through their own media monitoring but through word of mouth and private messages within the industry, and that he believes the material may have been deliberately passed around among industry contacts. The companies then opened an internal review, brought in legal advisers and told key stakeholders that they disputed the reports and were taking legal action.

The Paid Post Offer

One exchange shows what the companies were up against. On August 8, 2025, the law firm Crawford Bayley & Co. emailed a legal notice to an account calling itself Tech K Times. The reply the same day offered a guest post for $100 or a link placed in an existing article for $120, promising instant publishing, permanent "do-follow" links and Google indexing without sponsor labels. Gulf News noted that the reply does not establish whether anyone paid for the disputed article or who supplied the material. A second law firm acting for Best Oasis, HFW, demanded that an article be removed from a site called Seekers Time.

Mehta also alleged that a few websites demanded payment to keep the articles offline. "We refused to entertain such demands," he said, attributing the continued presence of some articles partly to that refusal.

What the Police Found

Priya Blue's authorised representative filed a complaint at Ghogha Road Police Station in Bhavnagar on September 2, 2025. Police registered non-cognizable case No. 03/2025 under the defamation provision of India's criminal code, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and obtained a magistrate's permission to investigate. They sent notices asking the websites for their sources, supporting evidence and the identities of authors and publishers.

The progress report, dated October 4, 2025, examined 14 websites and found that five had taken the articles down. It says the websites did not provide the substantiation police requested. The companies also said they could not verify the identities or credentials of the supposed experts quoted in the pieces.

The companies' own count has since grown. Mehta said they first found nine websites, then 14 and eventually 22, of which 12 are now inaccessible and 10 remain online. He described some of the remaining sites as imitations of established news brands, with no identifiable owners, editors or working contact details, and said some domains appeared to have been registered shortly before the articles were published. The companies say they are continuing to pursue the remaining sites through legal channels.