The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police has arrested Manish, the prime accused in a Rs6-crore bank fraud case involving forged property documents and multiple fraudulent mortgages on the same property. Manish’s wife, Anita, was arrested earlier in April 2024.
A Plot Built on Paper: How a Single Property Fueled a Multi-Crore Scam
This shocking case, which dates back to 2019, reveals the audacity of a couple’s scheme to defraud several banks by mortgaging the same Dwarka property multiple times.
Manish, 45, was arrested on April 28, 2024, after nearly a year on the run. His wife Anita, who was also a co-accused, had already been taken into custody in April 2024. The couple, both directors of a private garment company, masterminded a scheme that saw them use forged documents to obtain loans from multiple banks, ultimately swindling at least Rs6 crore.
The fraud began in November 2019 when the couple approached a private bank in Rajouri Garden for a Rs3 crore overdraft facility. They pledged the third floor of a residential building in Dwarka as collateral. The bank, after reviewing the sale deed and ownership documents, approved the loan, believing everything to be in order, with Anita listed as the property owner. However, when the couple defaulted on their repayments and disappeared, the bank began its investigation.
The investigation soon revealed that the property had already been mortgaged to another private bank for Rs2.7 crore. Further scrutiny exposed the scale of the deception: the submitted sale deed was a forgery, with signatures of the Sub-Registrar and other documents manipulated.
The couple had repeatedly “sold” the same property on paper, mortgaging it multiple times, and reaping large sums from unsuspecting financial institutions. Their actions not only defrauded the banks but also demonstrated a staggering abuse of the banking system.
The Delhi Police’s EOW continues to investigate the case, working to uncover any further links in the broader network involved in this fraudulent activity.
