Bangalore:
After two years of being on a wild goose chase, Bangalore cops have finally managed to nab a woman who had cheated several to the tune of Rs 20 crore
Shalini Verma, a 51-year-old who cheated people across country for large sums, was absconding since 2008.
Nearly half of the city's police stations had been on a lookout for her. Shalini was nabbed from Koramangala at 10 am on Tuesday, while buying vegetables.
She came to the city in 1990 with her husband Amar Verma from Uttar Pradesh. They had a granite business, and lived in Koramangala.
After her husband's death in 1995, Shalini took over the business and ran it all by herself, until she met Mohammed Usman in 2003.
Usman was a Mumbai-based contractor who had cheated many people in various towns. He came to Bangalore in search of a new venture after the police started looking for him. He asked Shalini to join him and the two started living-in together.
They began meeting contractors and real estate businessmen and would often show vacant sites to prospective buyers, and offer them at half rates. They also carried fake corresponding documents to convince them.
The duo duped many people using this modus operandi, and then decided to tweak the technique a bit, since people were starting to get suspicious.
They began targetting Class I contractors and granite businessmen, and duped them in the name of supplying granite on cheap rates.
They continued the racket until 2008 but when people got suspicious and started asking for their money back, Usman left the city and is still absconding.
Shalini in her confession said she married off her daughter in 2008, and gave a dowry of Rs 50 lakh. The rest of the money was also kept in her daughter's name.
She now alleges that Usman did all the bidding for her, and even made her sign all business papers, so that he would not be caught in the limelight.
At one time, the couple lived in opulence, and had six cars, all of which were rented. Whenever they went to hotels, they would openly tip the staff up to Rs 1,000.
This way, they managed to cheat even hotels. A police source said they cheated Rami International hotel in Mumbai of Rs 7 lakh and the hotel authorities approached the city police in 2009.
Both Shalini and Usman had 10 mobile SIM cards to avoid being tracked.
The police have so far recovered Rs 1.5 lakh. All other police stations have been informed of her arrest, and investigations are underway.
BNS Reddy, DCP South East Division, told MiD DAY, "It is a big scam, and soon we hope to catch Usman as well."