Three fake real estate agents arrested for duping business of ₹23L

MUMBAI: Three persons who posed as real estate agents and cheated a property seller of ₹23 lakh were arrested on Thursday. According to the North Cyber police, the frauds promised to give the property seller’s flat a heavy deposit.

The accused have been arrested from Vasai and Nalasopara and have been produced before the court.

In February, a businessman from Malad was in search of a house on heavy deposit. The man had posted his requirements on a property website where he came across a mobile number of a person who claimed to be an estate agent.

The accused had posted an advertisement for “flat on heavy deposit in the Mira Road area” and published it on the website. The complainant came across the advertisement posted in the name of “Global Home Best Service” and reached out to the accused through the contact number given in the advertisement.

The accused then shared images of different apartments in Mira Road, Vasai, Nalasopara region via WhatsApp with the complainant. The complainant selected one of the apartments and sent an amount of ₹22.31 lakh to the bank accounts of the “landlord,” as instructed by the fake real estate agent.

After a few days when the complainant did not get the promised accommodation despite the payment, he realized that he was being cheated. The complainant then reported the incident to the cyber police.

The police team from the North Cyber unit then tracked down the transaction details made by the complainant to the accused. The police on Thursday arrested Haushila alias Shiva Shivkumar Shukla, 27, Yogesh Dulerai Karwat, 55 and Vishal Rajnath Yadav, 29, who posted advertisements on well-known property websites and cheated people pretending to be landlords and estate agents.

Police officials said while one of them posed as a real estate agent, the others posed as landlords. They are now investigating as to how many more people the trio cheated using this modus operandi and how many websites they posted fake advertisements to lure potential targets.