Mumbai: After a four-month hunt, the Navi Mumbai Police’s Economic Offence Wing I of Navi Mumbai has arrested five former engineering college friends in the ₹3.1 crore MBBS admission scam. Police said seven more are wanted in the case. Till now, 17 people have registered complaints, and police suspect more have been cheated.
The arrested accused have been identified as Abhishek Ashutosh Jha, 25, Saurabh Sheetalprasad Singh, 24, Gaurav Sheetalprasad Singh, 26, and Sushilkumar Suhaschandra Verma, 30, who met while studying and became friends while taking engineering courses at colleges in Jaipur and Rajasthan. The fifth accused, Hemant Bhadra Sarkar, 31, from New Delhi was hired by the other accused for the scam.
Background of scams
Gaurav Singh had previously worked as a sub-agent for an engineering college in Ujjain for getting admissions done under the management quota. After the main agent absconded with the cash, a case was registered by parents with the Ujjain police against Singh. He was jailed for eight months and had to pay ₹8.10 lakh to the parents in settlement.
Verma, who also holds an MBA degree, was involved in an engineering admission scam and two cases were registered against him with the Jaipur police, and one with Tilak Nagar police in 2012. “Since the accused were engineering graduates, they knew the general admission procedure and what students and parents look for in a college. They planned to enter MBBS admissions, in which the money is more,” Senior PI Shivaji Awate said.
How it all unfolded
The scam began in May 2016 when all 12 accused obtained fake Voter ID cards and driving licenses with their photos and fake details. The accused downloaded random scanned driving licenses and voter cards from the internet with details that matched their age. Armed with these, they came to Navi Mumbai and rented an apartment at Koparkhairane using the fake documents.
Later, they set up offices at Sanpada, Jaipur and Bangalore and named their agency ‘The Aspiration’. Sanpada was their main office. Once this was done, they approached Kotak Mahindra and Axis banks to open accounts in their company’s name using fake documents. Police said the bank did not follow the KYC procedure diligently, which helped the accused to successfully open an account. They also offered to invest large amounts in mutual funds to avoid a thorough background check by the bank.
Using details of students from internet portals and forums, they contacted those who failed NEET but aspired for an MBBS degree. They posed as agents for filling management quotas of medical colleges across the country, including Terna Medical College and DY Patil College in Navi Mumbai, Nawle and Bharati Vidyapeeth in Pune, Arvind Medical College in Madhya Pradesh.
“Rates for admissions depended on the location and the college’s reputation. For example, admission to DY Patil College was ₹40 lakh, while it was ₹20 lakh for the same college’s Kolhapur branch.
“Parents said some colleges had demanded ₹95 lakh when they approached them directly, but these ‘agents’ said it could be done for ₹25 lakh. The accused were not in touch with colleges and were fooling people,” Mr. Awate said. They accepted payment by cheques, RTGS transfer and in cash, Mr. Awate added.
The accused informed parents that the admission list will officially be out on September 30, 2016 but the same would be with them by September 23. “They had specifically asked parents to not to contact them before September 23. When parents couldn’t contact them after this date, they realised they had been cheated and lodged a complaint,” ACP Nitin Kausdikar said.
The Investigation
When the case was registered, all details obtained by the police about the accused turned out to be fake. Mobile phones used in the scam had been discarded. The first lead came when the police checked numbers most dialled by the accused. The interrogation of people in touch with the accused led to the police getting their real name and phone number of one, using which the rest were identified.
Facebook profiles and friends lists also played a major role in identifying the accused, who were arrested from Mira Road in Mumbai, New Delhi and Rajasthan after being tracked for seven days. To prevent the accused from alerting each other, three police teams synchronised the arrests in three States.
Spending the spoils
Despite the size of the scam, police have managed to recover only ₹10.42 lakh in cash, a Verna, an Activa and five mobile phones. According to the police, the accused splurged on dance bars, shopping at malls and parties. They would often run up a bill of ₹7 lakh in a single day at dance bars, buy top-of-the-line clothes and accessories and also spent on a lavish holiday in Goa. The gang’s plan was to set up a similar scam in 2017 during the admission period.
