Property developer dupes architect of ₹7 crore

According to the complainant Mustafa Behlin, he first met the accused, Satish Raghunath Patil, in October 2007 through his brother-in-law. Patil has a second-hand car dealing business and was also into property development.

Mumbai: A Versova-based property developer has been booked for allegedly duping an architect from Bandra West to the tune of ₹7 crore.

The Anti-Extortion Cell (AEC) 2 of the Pune city police crime department has detained two people who were attempting to extort ₹1.26 lakh from the contractor at Aero mall on Thursday. (REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE)

According to the complainant Mustafa Behlin, he first met the accused, Satish Raghunath Patil, in October 2007 through his brother-in-law. Patil has a second-hand car dealing business and was also into property development.

Patil requested Behlin to invest money in a slum rehabilitation project that he was undertaking in Jogeshwari and offered lucrative returns—a piece of land in Vasai and some flats in the project.

Later, he not just defaulted on delivering his promises, but also managed to induce the complaint to make more investments in his plans.

According to Behlin’s complaint, the accused allegedly accepted ₹10.50 crore from him under various pretexts from March 2009.

“Patil, as promised, gave me 226.5 guntha land (worth ₹3.5 crore) in Shilotar village in Vasai. However, against my rest of the investments worth ₹7 crore, he was supposed to give me a total saleable area of 25,269 sq ft in the housing projects he was developing. But he gave me bogus allotment letters for the constructed space and thus defrauded me,” Behlin alleged in the FIR (of which HT has a copy).

“The fraud amount mentioned by the complainant also included interest that the accused had promised him. He had submitted copies of all the deal documents with the police,” a police officer said.

Based on Behlin’s complaint, the Khar police on Tuesday registered an FIR under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, banker, merchant or agent) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code.