The Kharghar police are in hot pursuit of a Kharghar resident who cheated several residents of Navi Mumbai by posing as a Enforcement Directorate (ED) official from Delhi with access to cars owned by fugitive economic offender Vijay Mallya.
The Kharghar police said that the accused has been identified as Rajeev Kumar Sinha alias R.K. Singh. In Kharghar alone, the accused has allegedly cheated three people of ₹38 lakh.
In March last year, the accused met Nileshkumar Patel (40), a developer from Kharghar, and introduced himself as a Customs officer. Mr. Sinha claimed that Vijay Mallya’s cars were up for auction and he could give them to Mr. Patel at a low, attractive price.
Mr. Sinha told Mr. Patel that he could choose from a range of luxury cars. Mr. Patel picked a Toyota Fortuner and Mr. Sinha told him that it was worth ₹10 lakh and after adding the tendering cost the final price would be ₹12.50 lakh. Mr. Sinha then told Mr. Patel to give him 20% of the amount in cheque as an advance.
Later, the accused offered Mr. Patel a Range Rover and made him pay a total of ₹24.68 lakh in instalments for both vehicles. In August 2018, he told Mr. Patel that the delivery of the cars would be delayed as the Chief Commissioner of Customs had resigned.
The police said that the accused claimed that his wife was also a Customs officer, his father a retired judge of the Supreme Court and his two brothers were IAS officers.
Later, the accused informed Mr. Patel that the auction had been further delayed because the government was making arrangements for Mr. Mallya’s extradition from the U.K. When Mr. Patel visited the accused’s house in Crystal Plaza at Kharghar, he learnt that Mr. Sinha and his family had shifted out of the housing society.
The police said that two other men from Kharghar were cheated in similar way. An officer said, “The accused cheated Naveen Kumar of ₹6.86 lakh by promising to sell him the cars, and Rajkumar Bind of ₹7 lakh by promising to find him a job at the airport.”
The Belapur police have booked the accused for cheating a man named Surendranath Singh of ₹4 lakh. The accused has also cheated a Turbhe resident of ₹24 lakh by making the same promise of selling Mr. Mallya’s cars to him.
Still on the run
Senior police inspector Pradeep Tidar of Kharghar police station said, “We are investigating the case. However, the accused is yet to be arrested.”
Mr. Mallya, a liquor baron, is accused of defaulting on loans of over ₹9,000 crore. A Mumbai court recently declared him a Fugitive Economic Offender under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, which came into existence in August 2018. Mr. Mallya left the country on March 2, 2016, and a court in London ordered his extradition on December 10, 2018. He is facing cases registered by the ED as well as the Central Bureau of Investigation.
