22 November,2023 01:55 PM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Samir Kochhar
Actor Samir Kochhar and actress Karishma Tanna's husband Varun Bangera have filed a complaint with the Mumbai police alleging housing fraud against the owners of a real estate development company. Proneet Prem Nath and his wife Ameesha are accused by the Andheri Police of defrauding the families of Bangera and Kochhar out of Rs 1.03 crore in 2022 by misrepresenting the sale of a Bandra flat.
According to the complaint, after Kochhar and Bangera wed their respective partners in 2020, the accused allegedly promised to sell them two apartments in Bandra's Pali neighbourhood. With partial payments, Kochhar bought a flat for Rs 1.95 crore and Bangera for Rs 90 lakh. Though the accused claimed in June 2023 that they no longer planned to sell the apartments, it was later found that the flat had already been sold.
Andheri Police have filed a case against the accused couple under IPC sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, banker, merchant, or agent), and they have started an investigation.
A police officer told PTI on Monday that a senior citizen in Thane lost almost Rs 50,000 after falling for a scam. The sixty-three-year-old man was reportedly duped by a redeemable reward point scheme.
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The victim, who was previously employed at a Navi Mumbai-based business consulting firm, received a text message on August 18 from a bank that he had an account with. According to PTI, the message was a reminder to him that his reward points worth Rs 5,899 were about to expire and it included a link and a customer ID that looked similar to his banking information.
The man obeyed the sender's request and clicked on the provided link, believing the message to be genuine because it mirrored the customer ID. The victim reportedly followed the instructions and was instructed to enter his one-time password, which he did. An alarming Rs 49,983 was taken out of his bank account as soon as he entered the OTP, completely taking him off guard, a police station official from Naupada told PTI.
The victim visited the bank following the unauthorised transaction, according to the report, and found that the money had been moved to a different bank account. After that, on Saturday, he complained to the police. Under pertinent provisions of the Indian Penal Code and IT Act, the police have filed a case against the unidentified accused.
According to the official, the complainant did not indicate in his complaint why he postponed calling the police, but the authorities are currently looking into the incident.
With PTI inputs
