Three residents of Sector 41 were allegedly duped of ₹17.8 crore after being trapped in a property fraud by two Noida-based suspects, police said on Saturday.
Investigators said the victims, Kapil Sharma and his brothers Hitender Sharma and Hitesh Sharma, were approached in July 2024 by the suspects with an offer to sell 11.33 acres of agricultural land in Ghughera village of Palwal. The suspects took the trio to the land site and later to their real estate firm office in New Palam Vihar Phase-I, where they produced a sale deed and mutation documents to establish ownership.
Police said an agreement to sell was executed on August 1, 2024, following which the victims paid ₹12 crore to the suspects. They were later asked to pay development and registry charges, leading to an additional payment of ₹5.8 crore.
Investigators said the suspects delayed execution of the sale deed for nearly a year and eventually stopped responding. Upon conducting their own inquiry, the victims discovered that the suspects had impersonated the actual landowners and that the sale deed and mutation documents were forged.
A senior police official said the fraud came to light when the suspects failed to appear for property registration despite repeated assurances. “Kapil and the two others tried to contact the suspects, but they found out that all the contact numbers using which the two suspects were communicating with them were switched off,” he said.
Police said the victims later visited the suspects’ office, which was found shut. They traced the suspects’ permanent residences in Sector 62 and Sector 75, only to learn that those properties had also been sold and the suspects were untraceable.
The trio filed a complaint at the Gurugram commissioner’s office on December 23. The case was transferred to the Economic Offences Wing, which found the allegations prima facie true. An FIR was registered under Section 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at the Sector 40 police station on Tuesday.
Gurugram police spokesperson Sandeep Turan said the EOW has launched an investigation. “They are trying to trace the suspects and arrest them for recovering the money cheated from the trio,” he added.