The city Economic Offences Wing (EOW) arrested five developers in three separate cheating cases involving around Rs 28 crore over the last 24 hours. All the arrested developers have been sent to police custody.
The housing unit (II) early on Saturday arrested, Rajesh Sawla, Ashwin Mistry and Jayesh Rami the three city developers, in a cheating case of Rs 76 lakh. The case was registered in April this year at the Charkop police station and transferred to the EOW. The trio were directors in M/s Raj Arcades and Enclaves Pvt Ltd. The trio had in 2019 sold a flat to the complainant in a building Raj Shivganga CHS for Rs 76 lakh.
“The accused had mortgaged this flat and taken a loan from a bank. The flat owner started receiving notices from the bank for repayment of loan. This is when he inquired and approached the police. There are six other similar cheating cases registered against the trio and we are probing them too. Moreover, the accused had sold some flats to multiple buyers,” said an officer.
The probe is being conducted by SPI Sanjay Kate. Police said to avoid arrest Sawla was not staying at his house and took a flat on rent in Charkop. Police reached the flat which was locked from inside and Sawla was not opening the door. The flat owner and Sawla’s wife were called. This is when the room was opened and Sawla was arrested.
In another case, the general cheating unit arrested Mangesh Sawant of Sai Lee Developers. He is alleged to have taken finances of Rs 15 crore from a private company and was to hand over 1.25 lakh sq ft area when he constructed the building. However, neither the building was constructed nor the work continued. The company then lodged an FIR against Sawant.
In the third case, developer Jayesh Shah has been arrested for cheating the complainant and 29 others of Rs 12.14 crore. The complainants had purchased flats in Gaurav legend in Oshiwara and paid an initial amount for the flats. However, the accused did not take any permission for work and the project was not completed.
Pravin Padwal, joint CP (EOW), said, “People in Mumbai dream and work hard to buy a house of their own in the city. But some developers take money from the buyers and divert the funds for some other purpose and don’t construct the building for years. Whenever EOW will receive such complaints falling in its jurisdiction, stringent legal action will be taken against such defaulter developers.”
