2018 Arnala housing scam: Five years on, accused held from Bengaluru for duping 150 home buyers of ₹30 crore

The director of a construction company, along with his accomplices, was arrested in Bengaluru after duping investors and home-seekers of ₹30 crore.

MUMBAI: After evading arrest for five years, the 54-year-old director of a construction company who along with his accomplices duped nearly 150 investors and home-seekers of ₹30 crore was arrested in Bengaluru on Saturday by the crime branch unit (zone III) attached to the Mira Bhayandar-Vasai Virar (MBVV) police.

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According to the officers of unit 3 of the crime branch in 2018 the Arnala police had registered a case of cheating and forgery against five men for allegedly creating a bogus construction company named Mandar Housing Pvt Ltd. The main accused identified as Raju Surile and his accomplices Avinash Dhole, Vipul Patil, Allah-u-din Shaikh and Yusuf Coatwala had lured buyers into investing in flats in their projects at Arnala and other areas of Virar with various facilities like swimming pool, gym and clubhouse in low market rates. The accused showed the buyers, various vacant plots and the drawings and models of the buildings with spacious rooms.

The police officers said that in 2011, Surile had promised the buyers that he would give them possession of the flats within a year or return their token money with interest.

“To substantiate this the accused even made forged self-agreements with the customers to establish trust,” said a police officer from unit 3 crime branch.

The accused had sold one flat to at least six buyers and taken the money. When the buyers did not get possession even in 2018 and realised that the project had not even begun on the said plot, they investigated and found that the plots were not even registered in the name of the accused. The buyers then approached the police and registered a case of cheating and forgery.

The Arnala police had arrested four accused while Surile was on the run. On Thursday the crime branch officers received a tip-off from their informer that Surile was in Bengaluru. The police then traced his mobile number which they had got from the informer and reached Karnataka from where Surile was arrested. “Surile was on the run and has been hiding in Bengaluru since 2018,” said Pramod Badhak, senior police inspector of crime branch unit 3.