70-YEAR-OLD FUGITIVE WANTED IN CHEATING CASES ARRESTED

Karn Pratap Singh

NEW DELHI: The economic offences wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police on Tuesday said they arrested a 70-year-old con man, who has been on the run for nearly 16 years in a case of cheating and forgery registered in 2006.

In all, there are four cases against Pradeep Paliwal alias Mahesh Gupta, registered in Delhi and Gurugram and also by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) between 2006 and 2018, EOW officers said.

His associate, Vinayak Bhatt, who was wanted by the CBI in the same case, was also arrested with him from near Cross River Mall in east Delhi’s Karkardooma on Monday. Bhatt was later handed over to the CBI, the police said.

Officers said Paliwal was evading arrest for the past 16 years in one of the cases registered in Gurugram in 2006, and, during that time, he allegedly committed the other three cheating and forgeries to siphon off nearly ₹100 crore. His victims included individual investors, banks and even a state government, police said.

Four teams of the EOW worked on technical and manual surveillance for over a year to finally locate and arrest the con man on Monday afternoon. Paliwal is also under the scanner of the enforcement directorate (ED), said joint commissioner of police (EOW) Chhaya Sharma.

“To evade arrest, the fugitive and never stayed in a particular place for more than 24 hours. He kept shuttling between his hideouts in Delhi, Karnataka, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan in his SUV (a Pajero) registered in the name of his business partner. He never travelled by flight as a lookout circular (LOC) is out for his arrest. He was using a Telegram account, connected with an unknown internet source, and also used Whatsapp accounts on the mobile number from Zimbabwe,” said Sharma.

“Our investigating teams kept tracking his movement.the teams were stationed in Bengaluru, Rajasthan, and Delhi. We finally traced him to a hotel in Shahdara,” said Sharma.