Director of meat export firm arrested for duping homebuyers

New Delhi: One of the directors of a meat exporting company was arrested for allegedly cheating homebuyers by building several flats on land that was already mortgaged, and then selling them to innocent people.

The accused was identified as Moshin Mohammed. Police registered a case in 2021 based on the complaint of a private bank against a meat exporting company (currently under liquidation). The company, through its directors, obtained various credit facilities totalling Rs 95 crore in the name of the company in 2016 from the bank. "The company mortgaged one of the properties situated in Daryaganj," police said.

Additional CP (EOW) Amrutha Guguloth said that from March 2018 to May 2019, at the behest of Moshin, a number of flats were constructed on this land and sold to innocent homebuyers without disclosing that the properties were not free from encumbrances.

"A sum of Rs 13 crore was collected through such fraudulent sales. The accused opened an account in a cooperative bank, and from this account, he withdrew over Rs 3.33 crore for his personal use. He was deliberately avoiding the investigation," additional CP said.

He was regularly changing his mobile numbers and procuring SIM cards and mobile phones in the names of other individuals. Based on technical surveillance, a raid was conducted at a hotel in Nizamuddin (west), where the accused was arrested.

"During interrogation, he admitted to misappropriating the funds of the company," the officer said.

Moshin is involved in two cases under EOW Delhi. Other fraud and criminal cases are being investigated by the ED. He was one of the directors of the company and was overseeing its affairs. "They availed themselves of multiple loans from various banks to the tune of approximately Rs 300 crore by mortgaging various properties. When the business faced a slump, they could not repay the loans and resorted to methods to siphon off the company's liquidity to defraud the banks. Further, at his direction, the mortgaged property was sold, and the funds were utilised by him for his own benefit," police said.