A 61-year-old businessman has lodged a complaint with the police against a man who claimed to be a senior official from the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) and allegedly duped the victim to the tune of Rs 2.90 crore on the pretext of selling him properties in possession of the banks for debt recovery at cheap rates.
Interestingly, the victim visited all the properties mentioned by the fraudster and found that the said properties were indeed in possession of the banks for debt recovery and trusted the accused without any suspicion.
Victim met accused through friend
According to the Tardeo police, the complainant is a resident of Ghodapdeo. In his complaint, the victim has stated that in April last year, he had come in touch with the accused through a friend at Tardeo. The accused had introduced himself as a receiver of DRT (Class I officer). The accused had told the victim that he can get him properties from DRT at cheap rates. The accused then informed the victim about four properties at Girgaum, Ghatkopar and Kandivali that were in possession of banks for debt recovery. The victim visited the said properties and found that the properties were indeed with the banks for debts recovery.
Victim surfed on internet about accused and realised that he was duped
From April till July last year, the victim paid Rs 2.90 crore to the accused and during one of the deals, the victim decided to verify the claims of the accused and surfed on the internet about the accused. The victim was shocked to find that the accused was booked by the VP Road police in 2019 for allegedly duping a nurse to the tune of Rs 60.75 lakh by making similar claims of being a DRT official and getting her a property through DRT. The victim then approached the police and it was learnt that the DRT documents given by the accused to the victim were forged and neither the accused was working with the DRT office, police said.
The police on Tuesday registered a case in the matter under sections 170 (personating a public servant ), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the Indian Penal Code.
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