Woman arrested for selling ₹1.1-crore flat using estranged husband’s fake death certificate

Shalini Crasta’s husband, Ryan Crasta, had approached the police in July, alleging that she had defrauded him by forging documents to sell their flat in Borivali in which he has a 50% share

MUMBAI: A 50-year-old woman has been arrested for allegedly defrauding her estranged husband by selling their jointly owned flat worth ₹1.1 crore using a forged death certificate claiming he had died, along with a fake no-objection certificate (NOC) from the housing society.

The accused, identified as Shalini Ryan Crasta, was arrested on Wednesday and remanded to police custody by a magistrate court in Borivali.

Shalini’s husband, Ryan Appelin Crasta, 51, had approached the police in July, alleging that she had defrauded him by forging documents to sell their flat in Borivali in which he has a 50% share.

Ryan and Shalini had purchased the flat, in the Raj Villa Cooperative Society in Borivali, for ₹73.8 lakh after they got married in 2007. According to Ryan, the property was registered in both their names. To finance the purchase, the couple had taken a loan of ₹56 lakh from a private bank, and Ryan told the police he had personally been paying the instalments regularly.

A few months ago, Ryan got to know through a friend that the Borivali flat had been sold. The buyers had also taken a ₹1.11 crore housing loan from a bank for the purchase, he learned. After enquiring with the bank officials, he was told that his wife had sold the flat.

Ryan later learned that Shalini had obtained an NOC from the housing society for the property transaction. However, when he enquired with the society committee, he was told that it had never issued the NOC.

In his police complaint, Ryan alleged that Shalini had forged the signatures of the committee’s chairman, secretary, and treasurer to create and submit the NOC to the bank. He also alleged that Shalini had falsely claimed he had died and submitted a forged death certificate in order to sell the jointly owned flat.

Shalini had allegedly accepted the entire ₹1.11 crore amount from the Tanna family. She was arrested after a preliminary inquiry by the police revealed fraud. The police are currently investigating who provided Shalini with the society’s NOC and a death certificate in her husband’s name, as well as where she invested the proceeds of the fraud and how those funds were utilised, said an officer.