How a conman charmed multiple women, sold property, vanished

Akash Verma was a skilled conman that preyed on women on matrimonial sites, convincing them to part with their money or property, before disappearing.

For the women who were misled by his him, 48-year-old Akash Verma was many things. To some, he was a sharebroker, or a real estate developer. To others, he was a film director. To some, he was their husband. To others, he was the fleeting love of their lives who promised them the world.

(HT)

But Akash Verma was none of these things.

He was a skilled conman that preyed on women on matrimonial sites, convincing them to part with their money or property, before disappearing mysteriously. And on Monday, after at least six wives, 60 relationships, and ₹40 crore earned fraudulently over close to two decades, Akash Verma was a man in jail, arrested after an elaborate three-month-long chase by the Faridabad police.

The man and the con

From Jalandhar in Punjab, Verma was born in 1974 , to a middle class family. His father worked in a private company, and Verma initially studied in Jalandhar, before finishing class 10 in Delhi. He claims that he graduated from the Shri Ram College of Commerce, but the police have found no such record. At the age of 18, Verma got married in Jalandhar, and began work in real estate, as well as investing in shares and betting on cricket matches. He even had a son through that first marriage.

But Verma wanted the good life, and Jalandhar was too small to accommodate his dreams.

The first time Verma — tall, well-built, charming; fond of luxury cars, wristwatches, and shoes — found his way into police records was in 2004. That year, he allegedly met a 28-year-old woman through the ‘Shaadi.com’ matrimonial site, introducing himself as a sharebroker. As he wormed his way into her life, he claimed that he had property worth ₹100 crore in both Punjab and the National Capital Region, and even sent her screenshots of trades worth huge sums of money.

After a few meetings, though by this time he had already been married and divorced twice, he wed the woman at a temple in Delhi, and began living with her. Two months after this, police officers said, Verma told the victim that he had bought land in Australia, and that he wanted to start a business there. To that end, he mortgaged her property worth ₹4 crore, ostensibly applying for loans. Except, even as she excitedly called her relatives about their relocation, he disappeared.

The 28-year-old hunted for him for days, but his phone was switched off, and every known address that he had given her turned out to be fake. A case was registered in Gurgaon, but the trail was cold, and nothing ever came of it.

This soon became a pattern.

Arjun Dhundhara, station house officer (SHO) of the BPTP police station in Faridabad, said that by the time he was arrested on May 23, Verma had married at least six women, including an NRI and a model. He kept moving across NCR, living in Ghaziabad, Noida, Delhi, and Faridabad.

“He would reach out to women posing as a sharebroker, director, producer or a high-profile government officer from states such as Punjab, Jharkhand, and Delhi on several matrimonial websites. He targeted women who sought emotional security, some of whom were recently divorced, and took advantage. Most of the victims are highly educated and some even hold key posts in various private or government organisations. He could impress anyone, and was never arrested because he constantly changed his identity,” Dhundhara said.

The SHO said that at least six complaints have been registered against Verma in police stations in Noida, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Faridabad. “He opened several bank accounts on forged documents, and had taken several loans after mortgaging property that had been signed over to him by the women he was with. We are in the process of identifying all the victims that he has cheated,” he said.

Dhundhara said that between 2005 and 2017, Verma duped at least 60 women across India, including in Delhi, Gujarat, Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore. The six cases that have been found against him thus far include those of rape, forgery and cheating. In 2005 alone, he allegedly duped a 28-year-old woman in Ghaziabad, a 32-year-old woman in Noida, and two others in Delhi’s Greater Kailash and Defence Colony. “He has not given us all the details yet, but investigations are ongoing,” Dhundhara said.

All the while, his family in Punjab had very little idea of the direction his life had taken. Police officials said that his 21-year-old son suffers from health problems and that Verma would send him money, and visit him once a month. His parents are yet to be traced.

When HT contacted his son, he said he did not believe the allegations. “There are no cases against my father and the police has framed him in fake cases. He was leading a respectful life and was not involved in any cheating, rape or forgery cases,” said Adit Verma, Akash’s son.

The investigation and the arrest

In 2017, a 45-year-old woman from Faridabad complained to the police that a man she met on a matrimonial site raped her on the pretext of marriage and fled with ₹70 lakh after selling her apartment. A case was registered on September 15, at the Faridabad central police station under sections 376 (rape), 420 (cheating), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 406 (Punishment for criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code. Typically though, the trail went cold.

Mukesh Malhotra, deputy commissioner of police (Central) said, “He never spent more than three months in a relationship and always avoided getting pictures clicked. Always careful, he never went on holiday to ensure he had no flight or hotel records.”

In2018, a Faridabad court declared Verma a proclaimed offender.

Three months ago, the BPTP police station began a focused drive to trace proclaimed offenders, following which they launched a fresh investigation into his whereabouts. Senior police officials said that Verma’s arrest came after a three-month-long chase, including inputs from informers and technical surveillance, which alerted the police to his presence in Panchkula. Officials said that they got wind of a SIM card that Verma used on an old hand set, which meant they could track his location. Eventually, the Faridabad Police tracked him down to a restaurant in Noida’s sector 72 from where he was arrested on the afternoon of May 23.

DCP Malhotra said that the cracking of the case was hard because Verma was wanted across several police stations, and his arrest was difficult because of the scale of duplicity Verma employed. “In the Faridabad case when the woman learned of the fraud, she confronted him; he apologised and within a few hours, left the house and went incommunicado. He has revealed that he stopped taking houses on rent and spent nights in temples, gurudwaras, railway stations, and bus stands. He even slept in his car, and had no accomplice,” Malhotra said.

Even on the run, however, the con never stopped. The Faridabad cyber crime police team sought details from matrimonial sites and found at least 100 fake profiles, and at least 35 more women he was in touch with across the country, from Delhi to Maharashtra to Karnataka.

On Wednesday, after a two-day police remand, Verma was sent by the Faridabad district court to 14-day judicial custody. Malhotra said that they were in touch with police departments around the country, and that Verma would be taken on production remand by teams from different districts and states in the following days.

When the Faridabad police team went to arrest him from the restaurant in Noida, Verma tried to escape on foot.

“He tried to create a ruckus and attempted to run. He only went a few metres before he was caught. But in the melee, a small portion of his denim jeans were torn. At this point, he stopped struggling and said to the team — mujhe mat maro, meri jeans bahut mehengi hai, isko phatne mat do (Don’t hit me, my jeans are very expensive, don’t let them tear).”