Land Fraud Racket Busted, 5 Professional Fraudsters Held By Special Crime Unit

Bhubaneswar: The Special Crime Unit of Commisionerate Police busted a land fraud racket by arresting five persons and seizure of fake seals, documents and mobile phones from them.

The arrested accused persons are identified as Bikash Ch. Panda (53), Simanchal Mohanty (62), Prasanna Ku. Mishra (58), Biswajit Behera (24) and Sanjaya Ku. Sarangi (57)

On 10.12.22 as per the order of the Hon’ble JMFC(O), a case was registered in Chandaka PS and subsequently, the case was taken over charge by the Special Crime Unit on 10.8.23 based on its gravity as an organized racket of fraudster involved.

In her allegation, the complainant who is a lady of Ganjam has reported that she had a piece of land in Paikrapur Mouza and without her knowledge, her land was sold to two different ladies in the year 2019 preparing forged and factious documents.

This case was investigated by a team consisting of Sanjeev Satpathy, ADCP, K.K. Hari Prasad, ACP and Insp. Bhagyashree Swain. The team examined all aspects of the case and found that a larger racket of professional fraudsters had taken part in this fraudulent transaction of the land who had prepared forged sale deeds, voter cards and other documents and sold the land consisting of 100 dcml to two ladies and also have taken Rs 60 lakhs from them.

Investigation of the case so far reveals that one Chinmaya Dalei of Nayagarh contacted one Biswajit Behura, whose name and mobile number were posted in an online property sale portal. When Chinmaya Dalei contacted Biswajit Behura, he in turn introduced Bikash Panda and assured him to give him a good piece of land on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.

Accordingly, the accused persons in a criminal conspiracy with Simanchal Mohanty of Jagatpur, Prasanna Mishra of Chowdwar, prepared a forged sale deed in respect of the land owned by Sanjukta Panigrahi and sold 100 dcml to Puspalata Swain and Kamala Swain who are relatives of Simanchal Dalei by producing an imposter as Sanjukta Panigrahi.

The fraudsters in connivance with the Head Clerk of Sub-Registrar Khandagiri Sanjaya Ku Sarangi deliberately on dt 26.06.19 applied for a home visit and registration of the sale deed and the application was accepted and accordingly, as per Rule 38(2) of India Registration Act, Sanjaya Ku Sarangi was authorized to do a home visit.

But surprisingly on the same day instead of doing a home visit in Ganjam where the applicant resides and mentioned that as she is ill she can’t come to the office physically, the Head Cleark did the formalities on the road in Bhubaneswar and identified the imposter as Sanjukta Panigrahi and subsequently on his report the land was transferred to the buyer.

The Modus Operandi that the fraudsters were adopting was quite unique. Initially, they were posting advertisements on the online property sale portal and once the victim contacted them on the given mobile number, they used to convince them by producing the forged sale deed and other documents which creates a sense of belief in the minds of the buyer to accept the forged documents to be genuine.

The accused persons arrested are professional fraudsters and were previously arrested in a similar type of crime vide Chandaka PS Case No 132/19 and are in court bail.

The accused persons are suspected to have participated in many similar types of cases which is under investigation.

The accused persons arrested are mostly land brokers, from whom many suspected forged land records, official seals of different Tehsildar, Sub-Registrar and other articles have been seized.

Role of different accused in this case.

Biswajit Behura used to contact the victims and introduce them to his associates while Bikash Panda and Prasanna Mishra, with the help of their associates, prepared the forged documents and arranged the imposters. Simanchal Mohanty has prepared the forged sale deed which was used for the transfer of the land.

Sanjaya Ku Sarangi, the Head Clerk of Sub-Registrar Khandagiri, helped the accused persons in making home visits and identified the imposter.

In this case, many other accused persons are still absconding and the Special Crime Unit is working on it for their early arrest.

During the house search of the accused persons forged land records, Aaadhar Card and seals of different offices were seized which were used to prepare the forged sale deed and other land records.

The Special Crime Unit is trying to unweave the entire racket and involvement of other accused and their involvement in other similar cases. The five accused persons were forwarded today and will be brought on police remand for further collection of evidence in this case.

Further, it is requested, that if anyone are victim of the fraud done by the arrested accused persons, they may contact the Special Crime Unit BBSR-CTC.