ED arrests city builder Vijay Machinder in a fraud case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested city builder Vijay Machindar in a money laundering investigation related to an alleged multi-crore fraud case. Machindar is accused of cheating a real-estate investor who had booked 14 flats at his housing project in Andheri.

MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday arrested city builder Vijay Machindar as part of its money laundering investigation related to an alleged multi-crore fraud case.

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Machinder, former director of realty firm Ornate Spaces Pvt Ltd, has been accused of cheating a real-estate investor who had booked 14 flats at his housing project in Andheri. Machinder was questioned by the agency at its south Mumbai office on Wednesday for several hours and subsequently arrested. The agency’s case is based upon Mumbai police Economic Offences Wing (EOW)’s case of December 2021.

The real estate investor had told the police that he had allegedly paid around ₹45 crore to the firm of the accused over a period of around seven years as payment against the 14 flats he had booked at the housing project in Oshiwara. Later, however, the complainant learnt that the accused had allegedly sold seven of the 14 flats booked by him to a third party.

The complainant alleged that the accused had not begun work on the project and that he had also defaulted on loans taken from the bank, due to which proceedings under the National Company Law Tribunal were initiated against him.

The complainant had alleged that though he had made payments for the flats, they had not been registered in his, his family and his firm’s names. The complainant had allegedly got allotment letters and receipts only for the payments made by him. The complainant had first approached the Oshiwara police and later the probe was taken over by the EOW.

Machindar had denied the real estate investor’s allegations of cheating and wrongdoing against him. Incidentally, the National Investigation Agency had recorded Machindar’s witness statement, among the 50-plus other witnesses whose statements were recorded, for its November 2022 chargesheet against against fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim, his close aide Chhota Shakeel and three arrested persons. Machindar had denied any link, whatsoever, with the syndicate ‘s alleged operatives in his statement to the NIA.