Two men were detained on Saturday by the cyber police of the Mumbai Crime Branch for allegedly setting up a phony Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) portal and making false housing promises to credulous individuals in an attempt to defraud them.
Amol Patel, who pretended to be an MHADA officer, and Kalpesh Sevak, the creator of the phony website, are the two accused who have been detained. A complaint was filed with the BKC police station last week by MHADA personnel, who discovered that a man had been deceived out of ₹50,000 and that many other people had also lost money. The accused posted a payment link on the fictitious website, capturing about fifteen people. The authorities believe that the overall amount of the fraud may exceed ₹50 lakh, but this could still change.
The authorities said that numerous other people also fell for the phony MHADA website and made payments using the link on it. The accused employed a different strategy: according to a criminal branch officer, a “agent” would approach potential buyers of MHADA apartments at a reduced price and direct them to Amol Patel, who would then pretend to be an MHADA official and guarantee them a flat through the MHADA lottery. He declared, “The investigation is ongoing and it looks that many more people are part of the scam.”
Source: Hindustan Times
