Bengaluru: Couple, 4 associates palm off site using fake owner, documents

BENGALURU: A woman, her husband and three of their associates who allegedly created bogus documents related to an empty site at Gottigere and sold it to a Tamil Nadu couple for Rs 1.1 crore with the help of a fake owner, have been arrested.
The accused are Keerthana, 29, and her husband Shekhar N, 36, both residents of JP Nagar 5th Stage, Pavan Kumar BR, 36, of Kengeri, Uma Mahesh Rao, 41, of Sarjapur and Jayaprakash M, 39, of Krishnagiri.Another suspect, Prajwal Ramaiah, is at large. The fraudsters allegedly passed off a youth searching for jobs as the site owner and sealed the deal.
According to police, the gang learnt about a vacant site in Gottigere belonging to Michael D’Souza, who lived abroad. They hatched a plan to sell it illegally for gain.
Meanwhile, Chakkaravarthy Nadupandu and his wife Rathiradevi from Hosur, Tamil Nadu were searching for a site and approached Rao in December 2019. Rao took the couple to the plot and they agreed to purchase it. Rao told the couple site owner D’Souza would visit India on the day of registration. The couple transferred Rs 30 lakh to a bank account, which was opened in the name of D’Souza using forged documents. The couple was sanctioned a bank loan of Rs 69,62,290 and paid the amount to the gang via demand draft. The gang brought a man identified as Geevarghese Mathew to the Bommanahalli sub-registrar office on December 21, 2019 and introduced him to Nadupandu as D’Souza. Registration was completed the same day.
According to police, Nadupandu got to know about the fraud on February 6, 2020 when Mathew visited him and revealed the truth.
Mathew used to work in a bookstore and had lost his job. He visited Mayo Hall premises in December and met absconding suspect Ramaiah, asking him for a job. Ramaiah told him to meet Keerthana. The gang took Mathew to the sub-registrar office and wrapped up the registration by representing him as D’Souza.
Mathew later realised the gang had misused him by promising him a job and cheated the couple. He found out Nadupandu’s address and informed him about the cheating. Nadupandu verified the land documents and learnt they had been duped. He later approached Konanakunte police and filed a cheating case against the gang on December 28, 2020.
A team was formed under the leadership of inspector Nanjegowda S and sub-inspector Sowmya MS to crack the case. The cops arrested the five accused and seized gold worth Rs 17 lakh and three cars worth Rs 35 lakh from them. Further probe is under way.