Loan-for-property racket, 2 held

new delhi: an innovative cheating racket was unearthed by the delhi police when it raided a supposed finance company, adsum capital, operating from mahipalpur extension on gurgaon road. police said the accused would lure their victims by promising them loans against their property. the idea was to get the victims to give photo-copies of their property papers, which were then forged.the accused would then use these forged documents to sell the property at well below prevailing market rates. fortunately for the victims, the police got to know of the scam before the accused could execute it. so far the police have arrested two persons, chandra shekhar and prabhat kumar, both loan managers in the company. the owner of the company and the alleged mastermind, abhay veer batra, is said to be absconding. according to the police, the accused would advertise in newspapers inviting loan applications. they would offer loans at relatively low interest rates. understandably a number of applicants, from delhi and adjoining states, approached the company. they were first asked to fill in an application form which cost them rs 500. later their property would be surveyed. this cost the applicant anything between rs 2,200 to rs 10,000 depending on the loan amount. both the charges were non-refundable. police claim that going even by conservative estimates the accused were collecting anything between rs 20 and rs 25 lakh by way of application and survey charges. police said this was, however, only the first phase of the operation. the accused, alleged police officials, would later use the duplicate papers to sell off the property. the accused had set up an impressive office, but it turned out to be a dummy. the computers in the office were just shells which did not work. the police claimed to have seized a large number of documents. the police found a number of documents had been signed by michael dalmeida. when the accused were asked about dalmeida, they reportedly told the police that no such person existed. dalmeida was just a red herring meant to mislead. all the papers had actually been signed by batra. a case has been registered and further investigations are underway.