MUMBAI:
The city economic offences wing (EOW) arrested a class-IX dropout for cheating a bank of over Rs 5.59 crore. The accused, Yogesh Darji, and his accomplice opened an account in the name of the
debt recovery tribunal (DRT), asked them to buy properties at lower prices through
DRT auction and took demand drafts from them. The DDs were then deposited in a bank in the fake DRT account and later encahshed.
Darji, 30, a Dahisar resident, is in police custody and the cops are looking for his accomplice, Nilesh Prajapati, a garment dealer.
Police inspector Srikant Rajaram-Patil said that Shrinivas Dhure, general manager of Satar cooperative bank, lodged an FIR. In his complaint, Dhurve said that a fake account in the name of DR was opened in their Kandivili branch and used for siphoning off money.
As per police records, the accused would approach people, asking them whether they are interested in buying forfeited properties at throwaway prices. Later, they would meet the buyers and negotiated about the property.
"Darji would introduce himself as an agent who works for DRT and state that several banks come to them to auction the forfeited properties, if the property value is more than Rs 10 lakh. They would then identify the potential interested buyers and show them list of properties in various newspapers that were on auction through the DRT. The accused would ask for some portion of money through DD and tell the buyers to wait for some time," said a police source.
Banks forfeit such properties where the EMI is not paid for more than the stipulated time or those who mortgage anything fail to repay.
The DDs would then be deposited in the fake DRT account in the Kandivli bank and money would be transferred in the accused's personal account.
"They bought property using these money," said police. Cops have identified the property and are in the process of securing (attaching) it. "So far we have come across 29 DDs deposited by the accused. More victims are likely to come to us. Certain bank officials are also under radar," the police added.
The accused had also issued fake provisional allotment letters to the buyers. The matter came to light when one of the buyers didn't get any information about his purchase, although, his DDs had been enchased. He found that his DD was deposited in a Kandivili bank and he approached there. "This is how the matter was brought to the knowledge and a complaint was registered," said police.