Four arrested for posing as brokers on real estate website, duping people of lakhs

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The Gautam Budh Nagar police arrested four men on Wednesday for allegedly duping nine people of more than 7 lakh by impersonating property brokers and property owners.

The suspects would target people who were looking for rentals on websites facilitating the sale and purchase of properties, officers said. The suspects, Amitesh Mishra, Anil Chauhan, Mrityunjay Choubey and Pushpendra Singh, have duped nine people between January 12 and February 1, said police. Amitesh Mishra used to work as a property dealer in Noida, said police officers.

Police officers said the gang was busted in connection with a complaint that was submitted at Sector 39 Police Station by a Noida resident on January 30, who said that he was duped of 79,000 by the suspects.

“The complainant was looking for a property to rent online when he got in touch with the suspects through a contact number put up on a property sale/rent/purchase website. He was shown a flat in Sector 46, Noida. When all formalities were done, the complainant was asked to pay advance rent and brokerage of 79,000. After paying the same, when the complainant arrived at the property, he learned that the flat belonged to someone else, and he realised that he had been cheated by the people impersonating as owners and brokers of the flat,” said Rajneesh Verma, assistant commissioner of police, Noida.

A first information report was registered under sections of cheating and forgery of the Indian Penal Code against four suspects.

“The suspects were identified based on electronic surveillance and manual policing. A trap was laid and the four suspects were arrested from Sector 46 on Wednesday morning,” said Verma.

During interrogation, the suspects revealed that they used to put up pictures of unattended and vacant properties in Noida on the website with their contact number for customers, said police officers.

Explaining their modus operandi, Ashutosh Dwivedi, additional deputy commissioner of police (Noida), said, “When a customer checks the flat/commercial property, the suspects receive a message on their phone with the contact details of the customer. After this, one of the suspects, Karan alias Amitesh Mishra, called the customer and schedules a visit to the property. Then, Pushpendra would show the flat to the customer on the spot and in front of him, would talk on the phone to third suspect, Anil Chauhan, who would be posing as the property owner. Then, a fake rent agreement is created and the customer is asked to pay three to six months of advance rent. The money is transferred to the bank account of the fourth suspect, Mrityunjay.”.

“This information was revealed from just one bank account while the details of other bank accounts being used by the gang are also being checked. It is estimated that they have cheated several other people,” said Verma.

The police also recovered seven fake Aadhaar cards and 4.20 lakh in cash from the suspects, in addition to ATM cards and a passbook.

The suspects were produced before a court and sent to judicial custody on Wednesday.


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