Mumbai: Dream home turns nightmare as Malad Police crack fake flat racket

What appeared to be a dream deal on a ldquocheap flatrdquo turned into a nightmare for several homebuyers after Malad Police busted a wellorganised property fraud racket that cheated victims by offering underconstruction flats at throwaway pricesThe police have arrested five accused in the case while the alleged mastermind is absconding The accused allegedly used popular real estate portals such as Housingcom NoBroker and social media platforms to post attractive advertisements offering flats worth around Rs 1 crore for just Rs 60ndash70 lakhAccording to police the gangrsquos biggest strength was the authenticity of its paperwork Investigations revealed that one of the accused illegally procured flatrelated documents from the registrarrsquos office digitally replaced the real ownerrsquos photograph with his own and posed as the legitimate flat owner ldquoThe documents appeared absolutely genuine Once the buyer paid the advance amount the accused would disappearrdquo a police officer saidIn one such case a 31yearold complainant Navaldev Narayan Rajput a resident of Malad East was allegedly cheated of Rs 30 lakh The accused showed him Flat No 1301 at Shubhashree Orchard Zakaria Road Malad West claiming it belonged to one Poptlal The deal took place between November 4 and December 23 2025 and an FIR was registered on December 29 2025The case has been registered at Malad Police Station CR No 9432025 under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita BNS 2023 including provisions related to cheating forgery impersonation criminal conspiracy and misappropriationBMC Election 2026 Results Parties and the number of winning candidatesModus operandiThe Police said the gang operated with a clear division of rolesKasim Rasheed Khan alias Amit Thakur absconding the alleged mastermind and his brother Mohammed Rafique Rashid Khan photographed underconstruction buildings and uploaded fake advertisements onlineDeepak Kirit Shah a broker acted as the main contact person and gained buyersrsquo confidence While Nimesh Anil Mavani impersonated the real owner using forged Aadhaar and PAN cardsHitesh Ravindra Kedari and Rajesh Bisul Prasad provided bank accounts to receive advance payments Once the money was credited it was withdrawn distributed among the gang members and the accused went undergroundArrests and wider networkDuring the investigation police tracked bank transactions made to an ASP Infra account and detained account holder Hitesh Kedari Further questioning and technical analysis led to the arrest of the accused from Mira Road Borivali and KandivliThe arrested accused are Hitesh Ravindra Kedari 30 delivery boy Rajesh Bisul Prasad 37 delivery boy Nimesh Anil Mavani 49 Mohammed Rafique Rashid Khan 38 Deepak Kirit Shah 47 broker Rajan Harshad Kakkad 45Senior officers supervised probeThe arrests were carried out by a team led by API Deepak Raiwade and PSI Niloba Jakkalwad under the guidance of Additional CP Shashi Kumar Meena DCP Zone XI Sandeep Jadhav ACP Prakash Bagal and the supervision of Senior Inspector Dushyant Chauhan of Malad Police Station