For more than three and a half years, 12 luxurious cars that were taken by the Mumbai police's crime division in connection with a loan fraud case have been left to rot outside one of its Kurla West buildings. The vehicles, which included a Mahindra XUV300, an Audi Q5, and two Hyundai Cretas, were bought illegally by getting bank loans through the use of falsified documentation. Police said that no action has been taken despite multiple reminders to banks and businesses that had funded the loans.
Out of the 23 vehicles that were purchased fraudulently, 12 cars are valued at around INR 7.8 crore. In January 2021, the Crime Branch disrupted an interstate racket, leading to the arrest of nine individuals. Gangs in Bengaluru, Indore, Navi Mumbai, and Mumbai were found to be the owners of the cars.
Police claimed they looked into the situation quickly and submitted the necessary paperwork to the court in order to avoid delaying the legal process for releasing the automobiles from seizure in order to make sure the vehicles do not rot while they are in their custody. Inspector Ghanshyam Nair of the criminal branch of the police department stated that in such cases, they always carried out a speedy investigation and submitted all necessary papers to court so that cars can be delivered over to their rightful owners at earliest and reduce depreciation to the extent possible.
Following police notice, the three private banks that had financed 11 out of the 23 cars—ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, and HDFC Bank—came straight to the Esplanade Metropolitan Magistrate court and obtained the cars' release from police custody. Five of the twelve vehicles that were left were financed by a nationalised bank. Those five were a Mahindra XUV300, two Hyundai Cretas, a Maruti Ciaz, and an Audi Q5.
A police officer said that the branch manager did not even bother to check on the vehicles despite reminders.
There are still two Mercedes Benzes outside the unit office that were financed by the company's own finance section. It appears that they will soon be in control of the two luxury cars, since their police are following the case in court, the officer stated.
The court even gave one of the unclaimed vehicles—a MINI Cooper—to one of the accused, Ramsajeevan Maurya. This came about when, despite the police's repeated pleas, the Punjab National Bank branch in Vile Parle failed to appear in court to contest his plea to have the car returned to him. According to a police officer on the investigation team, the court held off on giving Maurya the car for about a month.
Dharambeer Sharma, age 31; Mrigesh Navidhar, age 42; Sainath Ganji, alias Sandeep Borate, age 26; Pradeep Maurya, age 46; Dilshaad Ansari, age 44; Vijay Verma, age 39; Salam Khan, age 42; and Prasad Ravindra Mhadik, age 24 were the other defendants in the case.
When bank officials seized two vehicles from Kurla resident Maujjam Mohammad Satvilkar, 36, in November 2020—a Maruti Suzuki XL6 Zeta and a Maruti Suzuki Ertiga—the scam was uncovered.
Satvilkar attempted to get in touch with Dharambeer Sharma, the dealer from whom he purchased the cars, but his phone was unreachable. Satvilkar was astonished to discover that the cars were mortgaged with banks. Eventually, he went to the criminal branch, and in January 2021, a case was opened at the Kurla police station. The police contacted many banks during the inquiry and focused on 23 autos after questioning at least 100 persons.
Dharambeer Sharma had spent five years working in HDFC Bank's loans department, the police discovered. Waseem Shaikh gave Sharma his paperwork to apply for a car loan before he left his job in 2018, but he ultimately changed his mind. Sharma then used Waseem's credentials to obtain a loan from ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank in May 2020 to purchase two cars: the XL6 Zeta and Ertiga. In August 2020, he sold both cars to Satvilkar for INR 9.85 lakh, and he stopped making loan payments after that.
Gang secured car loans by forging documents such as income tax returns, bank statements, PAN cards, Aadhaar cards, and other paperwork. They would even rent an apartment for two or three months while other gang members looked for persons who could pay cash by mortgaging the brand-new cars, all under the name of loan verification. Under the guise of urgent needs, such as their sister's marriage or a family medical emergency, the group borrowed money from private lenders, primarily businesspeople, and mortgaged cars for around half the amount.
They gave their lenders assurances that they would keep paying back the loans, but they would only switch mobile numbers to make sure that neither the bank nor the lenders could find them after they made two or three EMI payments.
Share
Tweet
