Mhada flats racket worth `1.86cr busted, two held
The Govandi police recently arrested two persons, including a doctor, for cheating more than a dozen people to the tune of `1.83 crores on pretext of giving them Mhada flats in the city. The accused allegedly gave the victims forged Mhada documents, receipts, bank loan documents and other forged documents to gain their confidence. The police has already arrested a bogus doctor in this case last month and is on the lookout for at least two more people, including the one who posed as a Mhada official to cheat people.
The arrested accused have been identified as Vijaymurti Ramanna (28) and Ramashankar Singh (51). They were arrested recently and are presently in police custody. Ramanna is a founder of an estate agency Global Enterprises, where Singh claims he is a doctor. Apart from these accused, the police had arrested one Riyaz Ahmed Khan last month in the case who is out on bail now. Khan had also claimed that he was a doctor, but a background check found that he wasn’t.
According to the police, the complainant in the case is Tilaknagar resident Vijay Saawane (43). Saawane was promised a Mhada flat in Mumbai and the accused had taken around `22 lakh from him between October 2011 and September 2012. But, he was never given the flat and the accused kept avoiding him by giving him different excuses every time. When he realised that he was being duped, he approached the police in March this year and a probe was initiated. During investigation, the police realised that more than a dozen people were cheated in a similar fashion to the tune of `1.82 crore.
Explaining their modus operandi, PI B.P. Suryavanshi of Govandi police station said, “The accused would call their prospective targets in the canteen of Mhada’s Bandra head office to gain their trust. One of the accused S.S. Gaikwad would pose as a Mhada official and would ensure victims that they would get flats.
The accused would also give the victims bogus documents with forged Mhada logos on them. They have also given forged home loan documents of a nationalised bank to the victims. They would lure victims with cheap flat rates and ask them to make cheque payments on the name of Global Enterprises.”
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