MUMBAI: City crime branch busted an inter-state car loan defaulting racket, seized 19 new high-end cars and arrested seven persons, including a former loan executive of a bank. Mercedes Benz, Audi, Toyota Innova, Fortuner, Ford Endeavour and Mini Cooper cars are among those seized from Mumbai, its outskirts, Bengaluru and Gujarat.
Those arrested were Pradeep Maurya (46), Dharambir Sharma alias Wasim Shaikh (31), Mrigesh Navidhar (42), Sainath Ganjialias Sandeep Borate (26), Dilshad Ansari (44), Vijay Verma (39) and Salam Khan (42).
Investigating officer Jagdish Sail said gang leader Maurya was earlier arrested twice for similar offences in Mumbai and Thane. Dharam used to be a loan executive with a bank but helped Maurya clear few files and he was sacked. The others are agents and those who aided Maurya in forging documents. One would look for people seeking loans, the other would make fake documents, and third will help in mortgaging the car in some other state.
“The gang used to identify persons seeking loans. If a person wanted a loan of Rs 10 lakh, the gang would convince him to give his Aadhaar card, PAN card and residential proof. In some cases they forged documents, pasted someone else’s photograph and purchased high-end cars. In some cases, they told the person they were buying a car worth Rs 20-30 lakh, would give him a Rs 10 lakh loan, saying they will pay the EMIs and they would used the car,’’ said deputy commissioner of police (crime) Prakash Jadhav.
The gang would take the new car to some other state and mortgage it, claiming they were in urgent need of cash at home. If the car was worth Rs 20 lakh, they would mortgage it and take Rs 15 lakh. They told the person who mortgaged it that they would soon arrange the money and take back the car.
“The gang would give them a duplicate RC book of the vehicle and then default on EMIs. When the bank’s recovery official reached the purchaser’s address, they would learn that the address was bogus or no such person stayed at that address. All documents submitted to procure loans were fake,’’ added Jadhav.
In some cases customers who genuinely wanted big business loans were told to increase their CIBIL score, and for that they had to take high-end cars on loan and pay EMIs. A businessman from Ghatkopar submitted his documents and under his name the gang bought a Mini Cooper worth Rs 30 lakh and Innova worth Rs 32 lakh.
The gang mortgaged the vehicles to someone else, who was using them for a year with temporary registration numbers. As the mastermind and some other worked with banks they knew the process and lacunae in loan processing.