Malad man who posed as DY Patil, builder arrested

He has allegedly sold properties across the city by posing as reputed builders, and conned a bureaucrat from Mizoram by posing as education baron DY Patil.

He has allegedly sold properties across the city by posing as reputed builders, and conned a bureaucrat from Mizoram by posing as education baron DY Patil.

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Himanshu Bhatt, 46, has been caught for the many frauds he has committed over 30 years, but has never been convicted. as he would get bail and commit another crime.

Bhatt is currently in custody of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) for a Rs76-lakh cheating case registered in 2007. “Bhatt would plot another fraud the minute he would get bail,” said inspector Ashok Khedkar of the EOW who arrested Bhatt on April 15 after a year-long chase.

In 2007, Bhatt allegedly cheated Bank of Baroda by obtaining loans by preparing bogus sale deeds. Police said Bhatt committed his first fraud in 1982.

To pump money into his electroplating business, Bhatt allegedly pledged bogus shares in a bank and took Rs8 lakh loan. The bank discovered the fraud a year later when it asked for dividends from the firms. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the probe and arrested Bhatt. He got bail and lay low for the next 20 years.

In 2003, he teamed up with an employee of a reputed pharmaceutical firm in New Delhi, who made incense sticks. The duo bought incense dough from a Mizoram-based dealer and sent him bogus demand drafts worth Rs12 lakh. While two demand drafts worth Rs4 lakh each were cleared, the businessman was caught while encashing the third. The CBI arrested Bhatt, but he he got bail again. The case is on in a New Delhi court.

While on bail in 2003, Bhatt roped in some builders from Mira Road, Malad and Andheri to cash in on the real estate boom. “He prepared bogus sale deeds and applied for housing loans from different banks. After the banks sanctioned the loans he encashed them by opening bogus accounts in the builders' names,” Khedekar said, adding that the fraud ran into several crores of rupees.

In 2004, EOW registered four cases against Bhatt and arrested him. He got bail and resurfaced in 2007. This time, he posed as education baron DY Patil when a senior bureaucrat from Mizoram approached him to get admission for the former’s son in a medical college run by the DY Patil trust. “Bhatt took Rs12 lakh for the admission,” Khedekar said. Bhatt was arrested but he got bail again.

The EOW will produce him in court on Wednesday.