Mumbai: The Mira Bhayandar-Vasai Virar (MBVV) police claim to have busted an interstate gang involved in selling high-end cars and SUVs purchased by availing loans on the virtue of forged documents. Seven people including the kingpin Rahul Girish Shah, 41, was arrested from a five-star hotel in Powai, where he was found to be staying using a fake identity.
According to the police, they received a complaint from a 40-year-old general store owner who stated that he came into contact with Shah through a common acquaintance in November 2022 as he wanted a loan to expand his business.
Identifying himself as a chartered accountant (CA), Shah claimed that he conducted financial audits of leading banks and can help facilitate the complainant a loan amounting Rs2 crore through his contacts in banking institutions.
The complainant handed over documents including income tax returns, know-your-customer (KYC) and property papers to Shah. However, the documents were later fabricated and used to avail loans from several banks to purchase high-end cars worth more than Rs2.57 crore in the name of the complainant and his wife.
Apart from taking the signatures of the complainant and his wife on power of attorneys and generating fake email IDs, the accused also fleeced Rs27 lakh on various pretexts.
After realising that loans worth Rs2.84 crore had been fraudulently availed on the couple’s name, the complainant approached the Achole police station following which an offence was registered on September 28, 2023, against Shah and his accomplices.
“It was difficult to trace the accused who frequently changed his locations from Karnataka, West Bengal, Delhi and even Nepal where he stayed in posh hotels by assuming fake identities,” said an investigating officer.
On February 3, he was arrested from five-star hotel in Powai with nine sim cards including one issued in Nepal, two laptops, I-pad, nine mobile phones and three fake Aadhar cards.
Investigations led to the arrest of six others Vijay Singh, 48, Umesh Gopale alias Bhikaji, Mohammed Nazar Khan, 40, Pravin Jain alias Ranu, 34, Akash Musale, 25, and Vivek Karande, 25, who sold the cars by submitting fake bank NOC’s to the Regional Transport Offices (RTO) showing that the vehicles were free from any kind of hypothecation.
It also came to light that the kingpin was a serial offender who was earlier been booked for his involvement in more than 12 similar offences by various police stations in Mumbai, Gujarat and also CBI’s economic offences wing (EOW).
