Mumbai: Three held in Rs 58 lakh fake high-rise homes scam

The Kurar police have busted a gang of real estate brokers who allegedly duped people by promising them flats in highrise towers at cheap rates The police have arrested three gang members so far including a lawyer but the mastermind of the gang is still at largeThe arrested accused have been identified as Suresh Kale alias Suraj Dubey 28 agent Dheeraj Yadav 23 agent and Satyam Dubey 30 lawyerAccording to police sources the accused deceived a 54yearold businessman from Mira Road last year by promising him a flat worth R60 lakh in Omkar Altamonte Tower located on Western Express Highway Malad EastThe complainant who found his current house too small registered on the Housingcom website in search of a bigger one In May accused Suraj Dubey contacted him on his mobile phone introducing himself as an agent and offering an investorrsquos flat in Kurar Omkar Tower at a cheap price of Rs 60 lakhThe complainant interested in the deal inspected the flat the next day with his son Dubey had sent someone along with them to show the flat After liking it the complainant called Dubey who along with the wanted accused Rajesh Marge arrived at the location After taking a token amount of Rs 10000 they discussed the payment schedule and the remaining amountThe complainant later paid Rs 5 lakh in cash for stamp duty and registration and R21000 to lawyer Satyam Dubey for documentationBetween May 7 and May 25 2024 after verifying and arranging the payments the complainant paid approximately Rs 58 lakh and received the documents for the flat However when he called to take possession all the accused switched off their phones Suspicious he showed the documents to a lawyer who confirmed they were all fakeRealising the fraud the complainant approached Kurar police and registered a case Under the guidance of DCP Smita Patil Zone XII and senior inspector Janardhan Parbakar PSI Avinash Nalawade and his detection team began the investigation and arrested two accused on December 31 Suresh Kale alias Suraj Dubey agent and Dheeraj Yadav agentAn officer from Kurar police station said ldquoThe accused lawyer had initially filed an anticipatory bail application ABA to evade arrest but both the sessions court and high court rejected it last week Following this police arrested lawyer Satyam Dubey on February 8rdquoldquoThe accused had used the same modus operandi to cheat a woman working in a bank She was looking for a house and the gang promised her a flat in Trimurti Complex Goregaon Shivdham area They took R20 lakh from her and later disappearedrdquo said the officerldquoA complaint was also filed in this case While police have arrested all the accused in this second case the gang leader Rajesh Marge is still abscondingrdquo the officer addedDuring further investigation it was discovered that the accused had similarly cheated people in Virar and Vasai as wellDuring a search of the accused Bolinj police seized the laptop of the arrested lawyer which contained fake documents of various flats The same laptop also had copies of the forged documents related to the 54yearold businessman said another officer30Age of the accused lawyer