Juhu man who fled with woman’s SUV arrested

MUMBAI: A 38-year-old commerce graduate was trapped at the domestic airport parking lot and arrested late on Tuesday for duping at least seven women of lakhs after meeting them on matrimonial sites and running away with the SUV of one of them.

Police had to register a suo motu case against Mahesh Kulkarni since none of his victims were willing to do so. Going through his phone, the police found hundreds of phone numbers of women saved with codes, like “Lovelife”, and found out that he had duped them of at least Rs 14 lakh.

Kulkarni’s luck ran out after he befriended a Bengaluru-based businesswoman a few months ago on a matrimonial site. He told her he had a garment business and was also a partner in a star hotel at Goa. “Kulkarni spent time with her from October 19 to 24 before convincing her to hand over her SUV keys for a road trip by claiming that he was fed up of taking flights and left for Mumbai. She got suspicious when Kulkarni switched off his mobile after leaving. Her doubts became stronger when she called the Goa hotel and they said they had never heard of Kulkarni,” said a police officer.

When she called the Mumbai cops, they asked her to come over to the city. A police team supervised by DCP (Zone VIII) Anil Kumbhare began a probe and asked her to lure Kulkarni with the promise of money and ask him to come in her car. As the team, including senior inspector Alka Mandve and inspector Sunil Rane kept watch, she asked him to come to the parking lot of the domestic airport. She kept him talking in the car till the cops surrounded it and took him in custody.

“The victim got in touch with Kulkarni on WhatsApp and lured him to come to collect Rs 25 lakh which she said she had brought to invest in his business. Once the car was recovered, she left and did not want to lodge an FIR. We took suo motu action and got Kulkarni arrested,” said Mandve, adding that several of Kulkarni’s victims are from the city.

The police have requested persons who dealt with Kulkarni (his mobile number is 9554519380) to approach their local police station and lodge complaints. Kulkarni has been sent to police custody till November 17.

“Kulkarni claimed to have splurged the money staying in hotels to lure victims. His mobile will be sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) to get more details of the victims,” said Rane.