Dupes two dozen house-hunters and job-seekers to the tune of several lakhs.
Three persons have been arrested by officers of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the city police for allegedly duping several people to the tune of lakhs after promising them flats under the Maharashtra Chief Minister’s quota apart from jobs in the Sales Tax department.
The arrested have been identified as Manoj Shinde, Vijay Rane and his son Siddhesh.
According to the police, in March, Vijay Rane, who works as a mechanic with the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai, had allegedly told some of his colleagues that Shinde, who was known to him, was personal assistant to chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.
“Rane claimed that through Shinde he could get the applicant a job in the Sales Tax department and the government quota flats on concessional rates built in Mumbai and nearby areas by different developers. Rane lured one of the victims and complainant in the case, Pradip Majalikar, a defence personnel, to cough up an initial amount of Rs1 lakh in cash and told him to pay the rest of the amount to Shinde after the receipt of allotment and appointment letter,” said an EOW officer requesting anonymity.
After Majalikar paid up the initial amount, Rane’s son, Siddhesh, took the complainant around to show flats in the Thane area. Similarly, identity cards issued by the Sales Tax department in the name of some job aspirants were issued by the accused.
“However, the victims believed the trio and kept paying them money, waiting endlessly for the appointment letters of the said job and allotment letters of flats. But the trio could not provide any, following which the victims lodged a complaint with the police.
Nearly 23 persons have been found to have been cheated by the trio, in all to the tune of Rs50 lakh, and we suspect that their number and the amount involved could increase,” the EOW officer said.
The police have sealed some properties and bank accounts of the accused and are probing further. “The trio were recently arrested. While Rane and Siddhesh are on bail, Shinde is in the judicial custody,” the officer said.
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