Seven held for fraudulently selling land in Jewar, defrauding buyer of ₹15 lakh

Police have confiscated ₹1.07 lakh of the defrauded money and are looking for an eighth suspect believed to be missing with rest of the money

The Greater Noida police arrested seven people for allegedly fraudulently selling a piece of land in Jewar area using fake registration documents and defrauding the buyer of ₹15 lakh, senior police officers said on Thursday.

The suspects had come together to divide the ₹15 lakh that they had already defrauded from the owner, but following intelligence inputs, police nabbed them. (HT Photo)

The police have recovered ₹1.07 lakh of the defrauded money from the suspects’ possession, and are looking for an eighth suspect who is believed to have fled with the remaining money.

Ashok Kumar, additional deputy commissioner of police, Greater Noida, identified the suspects as Neetu, Jaiveer Singh, Bhura Kumar and Pinku alias Devicharan of Jahangirpur in Bulandshahr district; and Saurabh Kumar, Rahul Bhati and Pratham Bhati of Rabupura, Greater Noida. The eighth absconding suspect has been identified as Rinku of Greater Noida.

“On June 26, Jewar police station received a complaint from Gautam Singh, a resident of Jewar, who said the suspects had fraudulently tried to sell 14 bighas of land (1 bigha = 27,000 square feet in Uttar Pradesh) in Kanpur village, Rabupura, to him. As per documents, the land is owned by three Jewar residents -- Vaibhav, Gaurav and their mother Neeraj,” said the ADCP.

The complainant alleged that the suspects created fake registration papers on the land and brokered a deal with him, with Pratham Bhati posing as Vaibhav and a woman posing as his mother, ADCP Kumar said.

“On June 24, the complainant had gone to the sub-registrar’s office to sign the sale deed along with the buyers, Madhur Goyal and Hardik Goyal of Panipat, Haryana, and a companion, Yogesh Sharma, a resident of Jewar. All the paperwork had been done and the land sale was fixed at a price of ₹2.38 crore, or ₹17 lakh per bigha. A sum of ₹15 lakh was already transferred to the fake seller’s bank account by the complainant as a token advance,” Kumar said.

Sarthak Sengar, assistant commissioner of police, Jewar, further revealed that when the suspects arrived at the sub-registrar’s office, Yogesh Sharma, who knew the real owners, said the ones posing as owners were fraudsters.

“As Sharma recognized the fraudsters, there was chaos at the registrar’s office. The suspects fled the office, after which the complainant approached Jewar police with a complaint. An FIR under Indian Penal Code sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 406 (criminal breach of trust) was registered and investigation was taken up,”the ACP said.

On Thursday, the suspects were nabbed by police from near Jhajjar underpass in Dankaur, Greater Noida.

“The suspects had come together to divide the ₹15 lakh that they had already defrauded from the owner. Based on intelligence inputs, the police nabbed them. While we recovered ₹1.07 lakh from their possession along with a fake Aadhaar card, seven mobile phones and a cancelled cheque, the absconding suspect Rinku is said to have fled with the remaining money. Teams have been deployed to look for him and one other suspect who posed as the landowner’s mother,” said Sengar, adding that further investigation is underway.

Explaining the gang’s modus operandi, Kumar said, “The suspects would first trace land ownership records and create fake Aadhaar cards and PAN Cards in the owners’ names. They would use these fake IDs to register the land sales and pose as owners to fool buyers.”

According to the ACP, the gang targets buyers looking to invest in land deals in Jewar and Rabupura area. “Since these villages are in the vicinity of the Noida international airport and Yamuna Expressway, there are several interested buyers in the property market. The gang would target such people. The gang is believed to have been involved in several such fake deals and we are ascertaining how many more people may have been duped by the gang,” said Sengar.