Mumbai Crime: Gang led by senior citizens con 500 job seekers of Rs 10 crore in 7 years

Photo for representational purpose

A 62-year-old retired civic body employee, a 66-year-old former woman police constable, a junior medical officer and a municipality sweeper, along with five others, formed an unlikely gang that staged elaborate cons to dupe more than 500 job seekers of Rs 10 crore over seven years.

According to the Mumbai crime branch, which recently arrested the nine, the gang's modus operandi involved luring people with employment offers in government bodies and then arranging for fake competitive tests, police verifications, medical examinations in public hospitals and even paying salaries for seven to eight months to keep its long con rolling and lure more victims, stated a report in Hindustan Times.

Police officers said that in the guise of a medical check-up, the accused would arrange for a table at some reputable public hospital such as JJ Hospital, KEM Hospital, Sion Hospital and Rajawadi Hospital, where a woman member of the gang would pose as a nurse. The accused forged appointment letters, medical certificates, police verification letters and even deposited salaries between Rs 12,000 and Rs 15,000 in the bank accounts of 27 victims.

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The gang was headed by Prakash Sadafule, a retired Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) employee from Kandivli. He, police said, began the racket in 2014 with the help of a former woman police constable Priti Padmakar Thakkar (she retired in 1993) and two serving BMC employees - Rajendra Sapre, 57, a junior medical officer, and Nitin Dhotre, 39, a BMC sweeper.

The police's antennae went up after a woman resident of Sion lodged a complaint against Sadafule and his aides at Sion police station last year for taking Rs 3.5 lakh under the pretext of getting her son a job in BMC's water department. The police found that more than 100 people from Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai and even Pune had approached the property cell in these places with similar complaints. They arrested Sadafule and Dhotre on December 15, 2020, and then Thakkar on December 16. The other accused were arrested between December 19 and December 21, 2020. Police said investigation is going on and that the racket may have also been an inter-state operation with further arrests likely. The nine accused are still in judicial custody.

Thakkar, police found, had previous cases of duping people on the pretext of providing them flats in Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) buildings at lower rates.

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Sadafule was a class IV employee in BMC who retired in 2016. Before his retirement, he was posted in a BMC beat chowki near Sion Hospital. "He was soft-spoken and had an assuring manner. He misused the quality, luring people with the promise of a [government] job and accepted money from them. Sadafule and Thakkar initially took money from around 100 aspirants," a police officer said.

According to the police, they took money in installments. Thakkar introduced Dhotre, a sweeper in BMC, to Sadafule, to attract more job aspirants. The accused took a first installment of Rs 1 lakh from the new candidates. After one or two months, they called the victims for a medical test in a government hospital and took another installment ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh.

"Sapre, a junior officer in the health department of BMC, used to take candidates for ‘medical' tests to some government hospital such as Sion, Rajawadi, KEM or JJ, where another gang member, Satnam Sahani, 38, would pose as a nurse. She would get forms filled by the candidates, recording their ages, height, weight and other personal details. In some cases, candidates were asked to bring urine samples," said the officer.

"The accused completed the hospital process in a few minutes so as to avoid suspicion and Sapre would convince the candidates that as the doctors were bribed by them, the medical check-up was just a formality," the officer said.

"The accused would then issue offer letters to the victims and would take another cash instalment at the time. For the fake police verification, the accused would use a hotel in the vicinity of Dadar railway station," he added.

During police verification another gang member, Kunal Jadhav, a dismissed civic employee, pretended to be an officer. Sapre would meet candidates outside Dadar railway station and bring them to the hotel where Jadhav would ask them a few questions and note down details on a fake form. The job aspirants were given forged appointment letters, medical certificates, police verification confirmations, IDs and several other documents in order to draw more money from them. Police said the forged papers were made by Prashant Kamat, 39, a DTP operator who was introduced to the gang by Jadhav.

"The accused used to conduct exams as well, for which they used to hire a hall or school rooms. Kamat used to prepare question papers of 100 questions, in which they mostly asked general knowledge questions. When the aspirants gathered at the exam venue, the accused would ensure they would not interact with any school staff or caretaker or owner of the hall," said assistant police inspector Laxmikant Salunkhe, property cell, crime branch.

"After getting an offer letter and waiting for more than a year, some candidates started asking about their joining dates. The gang then started discussing about ‘salary' to around 27 aspirants. Sadafule, for that purpose, engaged a money-transfer agent from Dadar and gave cash to deposit in 27 candidates' accounts. They paid them for seven to eight months," said police inspector Kedari Pawar of the property cell.

During investigation, police seized several documents that had the aspirants' private details, fake BMC letterheads, stamps, fake offer letters, ID cards and bank statements of salaries deposited in the accounts of the aspirants.

One of the victims, Sumit Mohite, 30, who lives at Wadala, said, "My friend, Prashant Rane, who had already paid Sadafule for his job, introduced me to him in 2016. Sadafule offered me a job in Railways as a class III employee and took the first instalment of Rs 1.5 lakh".

Sadafule later introduced him to Thakkar. "They gave me an offer letter in 2018 and Thakkar took Rs 1.5 lakh from me at Kharghar, where she was staying on rent.. She used to always ask me to wait for a few days whenever I called her enquiring about the joining date. But after three years I realised that there was some foul play and I asked her to return my money. Thakkar then gave a cheque of Rs 3 lakh in February 2019, which was dishonoured," Mohite added.

Another victim, who had completed HSC from Ambedkar College, said, on the condition of anonymity, "Around 15 youngsters from Wadala have paid Sadafule. I was also convinced by them and gave Rs 1.5 lakh to him in April 2017. Sadafule promised me a job in BMC's water department and conducted a medical test in May 2018. They asked me to visit Rajawadi hospital with a urine sample. Sapre met outside the hospital and took me inside where a nurse collected the urine sample and also checked my nails."

"After a week, Sapre called me for police verification in Dadar. He met me outside a hotel. One of his aides was sitting inside, pretending to be a policeman, and asked me a few details like name and address," said the victim. "Sadafule told me that my offer letter has come, but he did not give it to me. He kept saying that I would join the job in a few months," added the victim.

Further investigation is on.