MHADA scam: LIC staff, cop lose lakhs

An assistant administrative officer at the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and a retired police officer have been duped by a realtor on the pretext of getting a house in a MHADA building in the Kalachowki area. Both the complainants paid Rs78 lakh in total for houses they are yet to receive since 2020. It has emerged that the accused was earlier arrested for allegedly cheating another client to the tune of crores. He was sent to judicial custody but was released on bail.

First falling prey to the fraud was a couple identified as Vaibhavi Harmalkar, 45, and her husband Girish, who currently reside in Dombivali. In 2020, the couple lived in Chinchpokli and were looking for a house in the Lalbaug area. After moving the search online, the husband and wife stumbled upon a house on Magic Bricks, and contacted Prashant Mistry, its agent.

Mistry called the couple to his office in Lalbaug and showed them a flat at Sukhkarta Building. According to Harmalkar, the price was negotiated down to Rs60 lakh from Rs70 lakh. She added that Mistry suggested that the documents be under the name of her husband’s mother as she has a property falling under the slum roadcutting area. Mistry also asked them to buy a file from MHADA to make it easier for them to obtain ownership of the flat, adding that it’s legal to do so.

The couple was asked to pay Rs50 lakh as advance payment, following which, Mistry, along with a man named Ashish Binde, came to the complainant’s house and handed them some documents that he claimed were obtained from MHADA. Days later, during the Covid-19 lockdown, Mistry stopped giving updates and eventually stopped receiving calls. Though he kept reassuring the couple, he did not give them the money back or the flat. The second complainant was a retired assistant sub-inspector named Sunil Sawant, who was shown a flat in the same building, and ended up paying Rs18.5 lakh in 2020-21, but has not received the flat or his money back.