A Noida Police operation led to the arrest of a gang of nine individuals on Wednesday, who were attempting to fraudulently sell a 375-square-metre plot in Sector 55, Noida, valued at Rs12 crore. The fraud was uncovered when the legitimate owner discovered that financiers had visited the plot to sanction a loan against the land, police said.
The complainant, Shashikant Rai, a 30-year-old cement trader from Delhi’s Vivek Vihar, reported the incident to Sector 58 Police on February 14 after reviewing CCTV footage that showed a group of individuals breaking into his vacant plot in Block A, Sector 55, Noida.
The investigation revealed that financiers from a private company had visited the plot to sanction a Rs3.21 crore loan for Itesh Poswal, a Ghaziabad-based cement trader. Poswal had allegedly partnered with the gang to fraudulently acquire ownership of the plot, offering it at a much lower price of Rs3.75 crore.
According to DCP (Noida) Ram Badan Singh, the mastermind of the operation, Rakesh Bisht, filed a lost article report (LAR) at Sector 55 Police Station claiming his property papers were missing. Using this FIR copy, Bisht obtained the original registry documents from the Noida Authority, created fake ownership papers, and attempted to sell the plot to Poswal.
Poswal paid ₹50 lakh in cash and approached a private bank to finance the remaining amount for the land. When bank representatives went to inspect the property, they discovered the forgery after noticing broken gate locks and suspicious activity, which was captured on CCTV.
The arrested individuals, aged between 30 and 40, were identified as Devashish Kumar, Itesh Poswal, Anil Kumar, Vibhuti Kumar, Abhishek Mathur, Sanjay Shah, Kaptan, Rakesh Bisht, and Nitish Poswal. Police are currently searching for a tenth unidentified suspect.
DCP Singh added that Bisht had tasked his associate Devashish Kumar, a private school teacher, with identifying abandoned properties for fraudulent transactions. Over a span of 12 years, the duo had monitored the plot, wrongly assuming it was unclaimed, and attempted to deceive the rightful owner into losing his property.
