Has this woman conned you too?

After two years of being on a wild goose chase, cops finally manage to nab a woman who had cheated several to the tune of Rs 20 crore

After two years of being on a wild goose chase, cops finally manage to nab a woman who had cheated several to the tune of Rs 20 crore

The police say that she conned countless people of nearly Rs 20 crore over a period of five years, but when they finally caught up with her in Koramangala at 10 am, she was doing the most mundane of things buying vegetables.

The city police have arrested Shalini Verma, a 51-year-old conwoman, who cheated people across country for large sums, and was absconding since 2008.

The notoriety was so, that half of the city's police stations had been on a lookout for her. The police now fear the cheated amount may have crossed Rs 20 crore.

Shalani was nabbed from Koramangala at 10 am yesterday, while she was buying vegetables.

Shalini came to the city in 1990 with her husband Amar Verma from Uttar Pradesh. They had a granite business, and lived in Koramangala.u00a0

After her husband's death in 1995, Shalini had to look after the business all by herself, and continued to, until she came across Mohammed Usman in 2003.
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Usman was a Mumbai-based contractor who had cheated many people in various towns. He had come to the city because the police had gotten interested in him, and he was looking for a new venture.
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He offered Shalini to join him after he found that she was not doing too well businesswise. After some time, they started living together.

The couple started to meet contractors and real estate businessmen. They would show vacant sites to prospective buyers, and offered them at half rates. They carried fake corresponding documents to convince them.

They duped many people using this modus operandi, and then decided to tweak the technique a bit, since people were starting to get suspicious.
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They now started targetting Class I contractors and granite businessmen, and duped them in the name of supplying granite on cheap rates.

The unsuspecting businessmen gave huge amounts T V Thammanna, a civil contractor, lost Rs 5.5 crore to one such scam.

They continued the racket until 2008 but when people got suspicious and started asking for their money back, Usman left the city and is still absconding.

Luck runs out

Shalini in her confession said that she married her daughter off in 2008, and gave a dowry of Rs 50 lakh. The rest of the money was also kept in her daughter's name.

When people started calling and asking for Shalini, her daughter threw her out.

She is now alleging that Usman did all the bidding for her, and even made her sign all business papers, so that he would not be caught in the limelight.

At one time, the couple lived in opulence, and had six cars all of which were rented. Whenever they went to hotels, they would openly tip the staff up to Rs 1,000.
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This way, they managed to cheat even hotels. A police source said that they cheated Rami International hotel in Mumbai of Rs 7 lakh and the hotel authorities approached the city police in 2009.
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Both Shalini and Usman had 10 mobile SIM cards to avoid being tracked.

The police have so far recovered Rs 1.5 lakh. All other police stations have been informed of her arrest, and investigations are underway.

BNS Reddy, DCP South East Division, told MiD DAY, "It is a big scam, and soon we hope to catch Usman as well."