Express Impact: Probe ordered into ‘fake’ transactions of Pune building; HDFC bank also duped, say cops

Speaking to The Indian Express, Hardikar said the deputy inspector general of registration will be conducting an inquiry into the alleged fake property transactions registered at various sub-registrar offices in Pune. “Impersonation and other factors would be probed. Further action will be taken based on the inquiry report,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Pune city police said they have so far identified 12 persons involved in the scam and six of them have been arrested. They include a property agent and women who impersonated as owners of the building for registration of documents pertaining to the transfer of ownership of the building. However, the kingpins who made away with the money earned by fraudulently mortgaging the property to different banks, are still at large.

Four women — Kiran Chaddha, Suman Khandagale, Niru Gupta and Anjali Gupta — had in 2005 constructed the Nandanvan residential building by redeveloping a property they had purchased jointly in 1994. In May last year, they approached a few real estate agents to sell the building and shared their property documents with them. Over a 100 people, claiming to be potential buyers, property dealers and bank officials, visited the building in the following weeks.

In November, the owners decided to sell their entire property for Rs 3.4 crore to a person who had paid them an advance amount of Rs 37.5 lakh. But the remaining payments were not done so the deal remained pending till date. In the meantime, the police said, some real estate agents managed to get the documents of ‘Nandanvan’ and sold and mortgaged the building multiple times without the knowledge of the owners.

For this they allegedly roped in a few women to impersonate as the owners of the ‘Nandanvan’ building and got fake property transactions registered at the sub-registrar offices using fake Aadhaar cards and other forged documents.

The Indian Express has documents pertaining to 22 such fake transactions of Nandanvan building registered at different sub-registrar offices since July 2021. These include two fake mortgage deeds with Cosmos Bank and one with Bank of Maharashtra. The police probe confirmed two more fake transactions, including fake mortgage deeds with HDFC and Bank of Baroda. A probe is on to know that like sellers, were all the buyers genuine or were are a part of the racket to cheat the banks.

The scam came to light on August 4, 2022 when a property lawyer alerted sub-registrar Dattatrya Satbhai, in whose office two of the fraudulent registrations were made. “I went through the documents and found that two fraudulent transactions amounting to Rs 3.7 crore were done using fake documents. But by the time I informed the police, the lawyer who had turned up to inform me had fled from my office,” said Satbhai, who filed an FIR of cheating and forgery at Pune’s Market Yard police station against the four women, who genuinely owned the property.

The police probe found the real owners were entirely in the dark about the fake transactions of their property. The police then arrested Archana Arun Ravde (70), Anita Chandrakant Bhatuse (54), Chanda Ramdas Bhegde (53) from Wadgaon Budruk, Veena Dilip Gokhale (64) from Chinchwad, Meena Kailas Avale (47) from Bhosari, Vinay Patil (40), a property agent, from Sinhagad Road.

“We have seized a computer, printer, scanner, copies of fake Aadhaar cards and other items from the accused, mainly Patil. The arrested women impersonated as owners of the building using fake documents at the sub-registrar office and got the property deals registered. We found four such fake transactions registered at the sub-registrar Haveli 2 office. Two were registered on February 24, including a mortgage deed with HDFC Bank. Another two on August 5, comprising a transaction with Bank of Baroda,” said assistant police inspector M A Kamble, the investigating officer.

Kamble said, “Imposters also opened bank accounts in the name of real property owners by submitting forged papers at the CSB Bank.” He said the dummy owners ‘sold’ the property to persons who appeared to be NRIs, but it is being probed whether the buyers were genuine or fake.

“The buyers took a mortgage loan of Rs 1.42 crore from HDFC Bank. This money was deposited into the accounts in CSB bank and operated by dummy owners. Money was further withdrawn by the wanted accused, who could be the kingpins. The fraudsters had similarly got sanctioned a mortgage loan of Rs 1.5 crore from Bank of Baroda. But the money was not released as the transaction remained incomplete. The accused women, who posed as owners, say they were paid petty amounts for their task in the fraud, while a major share of the money was taken away by the wanted accused. Attempts are on to trace them,” he said.

Asked whether the banks failed to do proper verification of mortgage documents, Kamble said, “The banks got to know only after we told them about the fraud.”

The officer said a hunt is on for the remaining accused, most of whom are property agents and are linked to Vinay Patil. “We suspect that a group of property agents is involved in the registration of multiple fake property transactions at different sub-registrar offices. Possibility of similar fraudulent transactions of other properties in the city cannot be ruled out,” he said. The police have also booked a lawyer in this case, who managed to get anticipatory bail.

Meanwhile, documents available with The Indian Express show the property was mortgaged at least twice to Cosmos Bank and once to Bank of Maharashtra. The alleged imposters paid at least Rs 18.72 lakh towards government stamp duties and Rs 90,000 in registration fee for the three different mortgage deeds.

Two of the three mortgage deeds are in the names of Vishal Gorde, who “bought” two floors in the building in separate transactions and mortgaged one floor each to Bank of Maharashtra and Cosmos Bank. Gorde bought the first floor of the building for Rs 96 lakh, and, on February 24, the day he got it registered in his name, he managed to mortgage it to Cosmos Bank for Rs 69.87 lakh. He bought another floor for Rs 1.2 crore and raised a loan of Rs 96 lakh from Bank of Maharashtra.

The third mortgage deed was entered into by a couple identified as Anil Agrawal and Sunita Anil Agrawal, who, according to their registration papers, bought one of the floors for Rs 96 lakh and took a loan of Rs 70 lakh against it from Cosmos Bank.

A bungalow in Kondhwa with the same story

In a similar case that came to light due to a “well wisher”, a bungalow in the same Kondhwa area was sold and mortgaged in three different transactions in the last one and a half years. The owner of this property, an NRI couple based in the United States, has filed a complaint with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Pune city police. Initial investigations have revealed that in this case, the fraudsters even managed to open and operate bank accounts in the name of the owners.

“We gave property papers to some real estate agents as we wanted to sell it. But we have now come to know that without our knowledge, persons claiming to be us sold our property to a party in March 2021 for Rs 4.6 crore. Again, in November 2021, they sold our property to another party. In June 2022, our property was mortgaged to a bank. We were not even present in India when these deals were registered in our names. We got to know when a person claiming to be our well wisher left documents of fake transactions with the watchman at our bungalow,” the owner, who asked not to be identified, told The Indian Express.

Police sources said the scam appears to be wide-ranging, involving fake sales, purchases and mortgage of properties at different sub-registrar offices and needs a larger investigation by a dedicated team of the EOW. Officers said the bank and sub-registrars should verify the identities of sellers and buyers properly before registration of transactions to prevent such frauds.