PUNE: The police on Thursday arrested a man wanted in a 22-year-old loan fraud case.
Police said the suspect, Sandeep Sudhakar Dhaigude (53), was arrested from a bungalow at Madhavbaug society in Kothrud. Two others wanted in the case are still at large.
In 1998, the Chatushrungi police had registered a fraud case against Dhaigude, then a Sadashiv Peth resident working for a private firm, and two others on the charge of submitting forged documents and availing loans totalling Rs13.5 lakh from two banks — a significant sum back in the day.
The trio absconded and police have since been unable to trace them. Recently, constable Sachin Dhawale got a tip-off that a man wanted in a cheating case often visits his mother in the city. The police secured her call records and noticed frequent calls from one number. That caller was identified as Dhaigude.
“Dhaigude’s name features in the list of wanted criminals. We conducted a technical investigation for more than a month and found that he was running a shares trading business in Thane and would often visit his ailing 85-year-old mother, who lives in a rented bungalow in Kothrud,” sub-inspector Shashikant Shinde, who led the team that arrested Dhaigude, said.
Police monitored Dhaigude’s number and found that it was active in the Madhavbaug society area on Thursday. “We then obtained his photograph and took him into custody after confirming his identity,” Shinde said.
During questioning, Dhaigude admitted to his involvement in the case and claimed that he was framed. “At the time, Dhaigude worked for an import and export firm in the city. He claimed that the owner of the firm — one of the two suspects at large — implicated him in the cheating case,” senior inspector Rajnish Nirmal of crime branch (unit IV) said.
Dhaigude told police he first moved to Belagavi in Karnataka and recently, shifted to Thane. “He claimed that he had no contact with one of other two suspects [the owner of the firm], who he said was now living in Australia, and that he had no knowledge of the whereabouts of the other wanted man,” sub-inspector Shinde said.
The crime branch has transferred Dhaigude’s custody to the Chatushrungi police.