The Delhi police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has been successful in solving 98.3% of white-collar crime cases this year. Lesser number of such crimes were reported in 2020 compared to previous years. The EOW takes up cases involving fraud of ₹2 crore and above.
Joint Commissioner of Police (EOW) O.P. Mishra said he gets job satisfaction when the victims of white-collar crimes get justice because people often fall prey to lucrative schemes sold by “cheaters” and end up spending their hard-earned money. The EOW also receives a large number of complaints from homebuyers who have been cheated by builders offering them flats in Delhi-NCR.
In 2018, a total of 493 cases were registered and only 238 were disposed of by the EOW. In 2019, the number went down to 392 cases of which 269 were solved. In 2020, a total of 243 cases were registered till December 4 of which 239 cases have been disposed off and 198 people were arrested — the highest since 2017.
The police said there are three categories of frauds — real estate, Ponzi schemes and cybercrime.
Land pooling scam
“The biggest fraud in recent times was flats promised under DDA’s land pooling policy. The policy was never notified but ‘fraudsters’ cheated hundreds of investors by collecting more than ₹100 crore from them. After we started cracking down on such ‘fraudsters’, the number of cases has come down drastically. The gravity of the fraud can be imagined from the fact that one of the ‘fraudsters’ had invested ₹2 crore in bulk messaging service to lure investors,” said Mr. Mishra.
In a recent case, a retired government employee was duped by a Noida-based builder who had promised him a flat around 10 years ago. The victim approached the Delhi police as the developer’s registered office was in the Capital.
There were 22 complaints against the accused who had allegedly duped investors to the tune of ₹7.5 crore. Thanking the Delhi police, the victim mentioned that he had invested his career savings and had even withdrawn money from his provident fund for the flat.
Despite launching the project 10 years ago, the accused had not given the possession of the units and had siphoned off crores of rupees. Despite multiple representations and visits to the accused’s office, the builder did not come forward to settle the investors’ dues.
The EOW team arrested the accused during the pandemic when all, including the investors, were scared to step out of their homes. It was only after the accused was arrested that his office settled the dues.
Mr. Mishra said they request the investors to verify the antecedents of the builders or the schemes before investing in them. “Always cross-verify the details from the government departments concerned. And never fall for schemes that promise to double the money in a short period of time. Like in Ponzi schemes, the company will always gain trust by initial payments of the assured amount for some time and later flee with the funds,” he added.
The Delhi police have registered a number of FIRs against fraud developers or Ponzi schemes functional in NCR. The victims prefer to approach the Delhi police because of their expertise in handling big financial frauds, but an FIR is registered in Delhi only if the accused have their registered offices in the city, said Mr. Mishra.
Latest techniques
“We are the nodal office for many agencies that help in getting access to data during investigation of any case. We monitor latest techniques used by the fraudsters and organise professional skill enhancement training for investigating officers according to the requirements. This year, we held around 25 such training programmes. Even during the pandemic, we held training sessions online. We always take feedback from the investigating officers to know the areas where they need more skill enhancement,” said Mr. Mishra.
The police said the accused in multicrore Ponzi schemes, like Bike Boat and Hello Taxi, were arrested from outside Delhi. They were some of the biggest Ponzi schemes being operated in Delhi-NCR.
“The court is also very strict in cases where the investors are cheated and the accused get bail only when he/she settles the matter with the cheated investors. We also ensure that investigations in the cases finish within a given time period,” said a police officer.
