Fraud case: EOW conducts raids on premises of builder

Mumbai police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Thursday conducted searches at multiple premises of city-based builder and director of Supreme Constructions company Lalit Tekchandani. The accused builder at present is facing five criminal cases.

The searches covered Tekchandani’s residence, his office and two other premises in the city, the police said. The Mumbai police had last week registered an FIR against Tekchandani, his wife, the directors of his company Supreme Constructions and a few others at the Chembur police station. It was a fraud case in which the complainant had invested Rs 36 lakh in Tekchandani’s construction project at Taloja in Navi Mumbai. The project however got stuck a year before it’s deadline in 2017. The home buyers started asking Tekchandani the reasons behind it, but they only got vague promises, the police said.

Hundreds of flat buyers invested in Tekchandani’s project, but they neither got the flats nor their money back, the police complaint said.

A case of cheating and criminal breach of trust was then registered against him. The probe was transferred to the EOW which is now investigating the case carried out searches at his premises to find evidence. One of the FIRs against the accused builder involves an alleged fraud of 160 home buyers who were duped by him to the tune of Rs 44 crore.