Tirupati Realtor Held for Duping NRI of Rs 2 Cr

HYDERABAD:  A 56-year-old real estate businessman of Tirupati was arrested by sleuths of the Central Crime Station on Friday for allegedly cheating a non-resident Indian of Rs  2 crore.

Police arrested Mabbu Chandrasekhar Reddy, a resident of Tiruchanur near Tirupati, in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh basing on a complaint lodged by a Canadian citizen K Janardhan Chowdary, on February 18.

Chowdary, born and brought up at Tirupati, migrated to the USA and later to Canada whose citizenship he obtained. Being in need of money for his spinal cord surgery, he decided to sell away his share of property located in Tirupati.

His relative K Prasuna and her husband G Bhaskar introduced him to one Sreenath, managing director of Money Mantra Properties and Deals Pvt Ltd.

Bhaskar also introduced him to Mabbu Chandrasekhar Reddy, a real estate businessman. Reddy agreed to buy Chowdary’s property for Rs  3.20 crore, paid him Rs  1.20 crore and promised to invest the balance amount in the names of Chowdary’s two sons with Money Mantra Properties Deals Pvt Ltd and some other companies for the future security of his two children.

Sreenath and Reddy confirmed the payments in the names of Chowdary’s sons by sending him an e-mail and scanned copies of  ‘deposit receipts’. But, to his shock, Chowdary found out that no such amounts had been deposited or invested in his sons’ names. He then lodged a complaint.

Police investigation revealed that Reddy, reeling under money shortage, hatched a plan and colluded with Sreenath to cheat Chowdary.

He created fake and fabricated pay-in slip counterfoils of ICICI Bank, Khairatabad, and ING Vysya Bank, Chikkadpally with the bank seals to make Chowdary believe that money had been deposited in the banks towards investments in the said companies. He then scanned the counterfoils to Chowdary’s e-mail account from Sreenath’s e-mail account to make him believe that Rs  2 crore had been deposited into the accounts of Manikanta Developers, Sri Sai Estates, Money Mantra Properties and Deals Pvt Ltd, Live Well Tours & Resorts, Sai Tourism and Club Resorts, joint commissioner of police (CCS) Prabhakar said.

Believing that the money had been invested in the names of his sons, Chowdary told his sister V Hemalatha, GPA holder for the land of 1.10 acres at Tirupati, to register the property in the name of Chandrasekhar Reddy’s company, Sree Ganesh Shelters, Hyderabad. The property was registered at the sub-registrar’s office in Tirupati.

Later, Chowdary realised that the accused had not deposited into his account nor invested in any company in favour of his sons but duped him deliberately with false and fabricated documents.

Sreenath had been arrested earlier and remanded in judicial custody.