Fraudster who duped people, banks of Rs 600 cr across India lands in vigilance net

In a major breakthrough for the Vigilance Department of South District, a hospitality and management professional was arrested from Patiala High Court on Friday for duping several banks and people across three states to the tune of Rs 600 crore.

The accused, Harshvardhan Reddy, used to offer an exorbitant amount of money as a rental to the victims and lure them into parting with their lease deeds. Reddy used to pay them via post dated cheques in return for their lease. Later, he would approach various banks and ask for loans against the property by providing the banks with forged leases.

Out of the illegally acquired loans, he carved out an opulent lifestyle for himself. He not only bought a farmhouse in South Delhi's posh Chattarpur area but was also the owner of a fleet of high-end cars including Ferrari California, several versions of Audi and a Maserati Quattraporte, in which he travelled around Delhi dodging his creditors.

The fraud's name cropped up when the Vigilance Department was working on several cases of proclaimed offenders. The Department had learned that Reddy was a PO in a case lodged in Janakpuri.

Further, an anticipatory bail application was rejected by the concerned court when the Barakhamba Road branch of Kotak Mahindra bank complained that Reddy had fraudulently obtained three different PAN Cards and two passports.

Following this, luck ran out for the imposter after the Vigilance Department (South), got a tip-off that Reddy would visit the court on Friday to check up on his cheating cases. "We had received inputs that a proclaimed offender who was on the run after cheating several people and banks would visit the court to get updates on his cheating case. Inspector Manoj from Vigilance department supervised the operation and nine other police officials were sent in to apprehend him," said a Vigilance official.

After the trickster was nabbed, the investigators realised that they were sitting on the tip of an iceberg as it was found that Reddy had cheated several Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFC), banks and scores of people in cities like Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi. So far he has at least thirteen such cases lodged against him in the three states.

Also, he had opened up four companies – M/s Merit Resort Pvt. Ltd, M/s Aura Institutions Pvt. Ltd, M/s HVR Pvt. Ltd and M/s Edutech Pvt. Ltd. He used to funnel all the illicit money into the companies and later withdraw them to splurge on his sumptuous style of living.

During his interrogation, Reddy told the cops that he used to promise high rental money against the victim's property from posh colonies. Then, he would prepare a forged lease of the property and approach the banks for loans.

"He would convince the people into executing the lease deeds for their property and would pay them with post dated cheques that would be dishonoured later. Once the lease deed of an expensive property was executed, he used to prepare a forged lease deed of the same property and approach the bank," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (South), Ishwar Singh.

To showcase the banks of his good credit, Reddy flashed the properties as his own. He also enhanced the property space and other financial parameters to hoodwink the banks. After the banks gave him the money, he would invest it in luxury cars and farmhouses.

After the banks froze his property worth Rs 300 crores, they also seized all his pricey vehicles. But, Reddy kept his Maserati Quattraporte

away from State Bank of India which was seized soon after his arrest.