Nagpur: Four booked for Rs 69 lakh flat fraud in Wathoda
Nandanvan police have booked four people after a man paid Rs 69 lakh for a flat and was denied possession and registration.
A case has come to light in which a man was allegedly cheated of Rs 69 lakh on the promise of a flat built on a plot in Nagpur's Wathoda area, and later denied possession and registration of the flat. Nandanvan police have registered a case of fraud against four people in the matter.
The accused include Dutawas Shravan Vaidya, a resident of Shravan Apartment, Wathoda, Amitkumar Bhaisare, Rajeev Chunnilal Agrawal of Nagbhoomi Layout, Chhatrapatinagar, and Narhari Shyamrao Supare. Police registered the case on a complaint by Saddam Ali Akbar Ali, a resident of Yadavnagar.
According to information received, Saddam Ali, a resident of Wathoda, runs a mutton shop at Rani Durgavati Chowk. Rahul Chole was a regular customer of his. Dutawas Vaidya is Rahul's father-in-law. Vaidya had told Saddam that he was building "Shravan Apartment" on his own plot on the site of the Kailash Cooperative Housing Society in Wathoda.
In January 2020, Rajeev Agrawal, Vaidya and Rahul Chole called Saddam Ali to the same plot and offered him two flats in the apartment. Saddam accepted the offer, took a bank loan, and paid Rs 69 lakh to Vaidya through Rahul.
After construction of the apartment was completed, Saddam Ali asked for possession and registration of the flat, but the accused refused. During this period, Rajeev Agrawal got one of the flats registered in the name of Narhari Supare. Narhari then transferred the same flat to the name of Amit Bhaisare.
When Saddam questioned Rahul and Vaidya about this, Rahul began threatening him. Rahul died in 2024. Saddam then filed a complaint at Nandanvan police station. Police have registered a case of criminal conspiracy and cheating against all four accused.
Separately, a retired bank officer in Nagpur's Wathoda area was cheated of Rs 60.60 lakh by cyber fraudsters using a "digital arrest" scam. The fraudsters posed as officials of the Nagpur Police headquarters and the Lucknow ATS and threatened to implicate the victim in a money laundering case. Cyber police have registered a case on the complaint of the 65-year-old victim.
According to information received, on September 5 the elderly victim received a WhatsApp call at home while at home. A person identifying himself as "Chirag" claimed to be calling from Nagpur Police headquarters and told the victim that an account had been opened in his name at ICICI Bank using his Aadhaar card, and that the account had been used by terrorists for money laundering. The caller threatened him with a criminal case.
Following this, a person named Bhupeshkumar, on a WhatsApp video call, claimed to be an official of the Lucknow ATS and told the victim to report there for questioning within two hours. When the victim said he could not travel to Lucknow, the accused told him he would be kept under "digital arrest" until the inquiry was complete. The fraudsters told him he would have to deposit his entire funds into a "Reserve Bank of India" account until the inquiry concluded. To gain his trust, they sent him fake bank statements, a fake debit card, and fake documents made in the name of the NIA and RBI.
The accused kept the victim under surveillance in the name of digital arrest for about two days and, on September 7, transferred Rs 60.60 lakh from his account into different accounts. After losing the money, the victim informed his family, who looked into the matter and found that it was a cyber fraud.
