Mumbai: A 28-year-old man, who allegedly claimed to be a home loan sales executive, was arrested on Friday evening, after a longchase of 11 months by the Parksite police.
It started in April 2021, when the accused, Akshay Prakash Pawar, a resident of Ghatkopar, working as a home loan sales executive in one of the popular banks approached a man to offer him a ‘top-up’ loan.
Fraud in the name of 'top-up' loan
A top-up loan is a loan given by the bank over and above your home loan. Akshay’s modus was to promise loans to people and make them pay the ‘advance payment’ on the pretext of a processing fee. A case was registered against him by Pant Nagar police in Ghatkopar for fraud and cheating off Rs 1,30,000 from the complainant.
After the FIR by the police, Akshay was fired from the bank in June 2021, yet he continued to tell people that he is a home loan sales executive.
According to Parksite police, he continued to con people on the same pretext of providing top-up loans. It was in June last year when they received the first complaint. “Going by the MO, we started inquiring about similar such MOs with other police and that is when Pant Nagar’s case came under our observation. The entire scheme looked the same, even the name used by the accused was the same,” said senior police inspector Vinayak Mer of Parksite police.
Duped Rs 17 lakh in the name of reselling property
The investigation to find out about Akshay’s whereabouts was on and that is when they received yet another complaint from a person in Kanjurmarg. In this case, Akshay was allegedly trying to sell his property to the complainant and while doing so he said that he has an ‘outstanding amount’ for the loan of his house which was Rs 15 lakh. Akshay even provided a letter of loan from the bank. He took Rs 17 lakh from the complainant, where the additional Rs 2 lakh was formality fees.
In reality, the entire thing was a lie, the letter was forged, confirmed the police. The outstanding amount was actually Rs 38,06,672, which was told by the complainant in his police statement. After this incident, Akshay went missing and even his parents and family had no idea about his whereabouts. Going by the records since the property was under the complainant's name, the actual amount became his responsibility. The complainant started receiving notice from the banks inquiring about the due amount of the loan, he said in the statement.
Scammed 10-15 people in Pune alone
“We checked with his family and they said many loan takers and givers are visiting them but they have no idea about what Akshay is doing and where he is currently,” said Mer. He also added that during the course of the investigation, a similar case caught their attention which was based in Pune.
“We got to know that someone with the same name as Akshay, with a similar MO, has a case registered at Lonikalbhor Police station in Pune. He was arrested and kept in police custody then judicial custody for over six months till he received bail. It was the same person that we were looking for. In Pune itself he had scammed 10 to 15 people,” added Mer.
A team of officials began the investigation in December last year to trace and locate Akshay. The police received tip-off from the informants saying he (Akshay) had changed his identity and was living in different hotels, boarding, and lodgings to hide from the police.
The breakthrough in the case was a food delivery app that was used by the police to identify Akshay’s track records. “Even though he changed his identity and everything, he kept his name intact. He was constantly ordering food through this one (food) app through which we traced his location and apprehended him. He was living in a dormitory in Mumbai itself,” concluded Mer.
In total Akshay has apparently conned more than 22 to 25 people with the same MO. A case has been registered against him for cheating, forgery, and fraud under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. He will be produced in court on Saturday for police custody remand.
