Bengaluru: Man dupes techies by renting out others’ flats, held

BENGALURU: A 47-year-old man who allegedly cheated several software engineers by subletting flats to them without disclosing that he himself had taken them on rent has been arrested in east Bengaluru.

Marathahalli police said Mohammed Abdul Raheem has many aliases — Rahul Raheel, MAR Nauman Salman, MAR Sareeq, Raqeeb, Rishan, Faizy, Yasir — and lives in BTM Layout. He adopted various methods to cheat private firm employees, especially software engineers new to the city and using online platforms to look for rented houses.

Preliminary investigation revealed that Mohammed used to take flats on rent and upload advertisements online saying he was the owner and was looking for tenants. He would take the victims to the flats and collect larger amounts (security deposits) than what he had paid to the actual owner. He also collected two or three months’ rent as advance and later switched off his mobile phone. The victims realized they had been taken for a ride when the actual owners knocked on their doors to collect rent.

In some cases, Mohammed posed as a skill development trainer and took flats on rent on the pretext of conducting classes. He later subletted the premises to three or four people to earn extra money.

Mohammed had rented a flat owned by Jagannath HB in August 2018 and paid Rs 96,000 as rent for two months. “Jagannath visited the house in early October to collect the rent. He found it had been occupied by four men, who told him they had given Rs 2 lakh as deposit and Rs 1.2 lakh as three months’ rent to Mohammed,” a police officer said. Jagannath approached Marathahalli police, who discovered that Mohammed was facing over 12 cases of cheating since 2017 and had been evading arrest.

However, police caught up with him when Pakhi Goyal, a software engineer, complained to them that Mohammed was attempting to cheat him by renting out a flat that wasn’t his. Police laid a trap and arrested Mohammed when he visited Krishi Gavakshi Apartment in Marathahalli on Monday to collect Rs 3 lakh from Goyal. The engineer had done due diligence and found out from the apartment association that Mohammed wasn’t the owner.

“We produced Mohammed before court and took him into our custody for six days,” an investigating officer said. Abdul Ahad, deputy commissioner of police (Whitefield), said those cheated by Mohammed can approach Marathahalli police.