The accused contacted prospective tenants seeking housing under the MHADA housing scheme. (Representation)
Mumbai:
The Cybercrime Unit of the Mumbai Police has arrested two men for allegedly creating a website imitating the portal of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority and cheating people on the pretext of providing flats under a government housing scheme, an official said on Sunday.
One of the accused, a man named Kalpesh Sevak, created the website and his accomplice Amol Patel allegedly posed as an MHADA official to deceive the victims and make them pay Rs 3 million for non-existent flats, the official said.
Sevak was arrested from Mumbai’s Mahim area and Patel from Nalasopara in Palghar district, he said.
The fake website mhada.org is designed to trick users into making payments through an online link. The official MHADA website is http://mhada.gov.in.
MHADA, a statutory housing authority and nodal agency of the Government of Maharashtra, provides affordable housing in the state.
Recently, MHADA reported the scam to the police, which led to arrests and filing of an FIR under relevant sections of the Bhartiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) and the Information Technology Act.
The accused used to contact prospective applicants seeking housing under the MHADA housing scheme after securing their contact details from the duplicate website.
“They told the applicants that a flat was for sale in Goregaon area for Rs 3 million and asked them to pay through the online link on the bogus website,” the official said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
