22 December,2010 06:27 AM IST | | Shiva Devnath
Cops arrested man who lured people to invest lakhs by promising to double the sum in 2 hours before making off with it
The Malad police arrested a 25-year-old man, who duped three people of Rs 17 lakh in all to be able to afford high profile prostitutes, yesterday morning.
u00a0
Sanjay Surve exploited his good looks and glib tongue to convince people he could double their money in a couple of hours if they invested with him, and then would hightail with their money, cops say.
u00a0
The police nabbed Sanjay Surve in Malad who spent the money he swindled from people on prostitutes
The police had been on his trail since October.
"Surve bluffed people to fund his addiction to prostitutes. He would spend his ill-gotten money on high profile escorts, paying as much as Rs 2 lakh for a night," a police official said.
Surve's con games were brought to the notice of Malad police in August, when he made off with a trader's money, after duping his aide.
On October 8, Jayal Shah (27), a plastic merchant, told his assistant Mahendra Thasal (24) to recover Rs 10 lakh from one his business partners.
On his way back with the money, Thasal met his friends, Sachin Parab (33) and Manish Dunbhal (32), who told him of Surve's investment offer.
The three then approached Surve, who promised to double their money within hours. Cops say the two didn't seem to have an idea that Surve was a double-crosser.
Police Sub Inspector Mahesh Nivatkar from Malad police station said, "The three went to Surve with Rs 10 lakh. He told them to wait for a few hours, while he invested the money and returned with double the amount.
But he went missing after that. After Thasal, Parab and Dunbhal realised they had been duped, they were scared to confront Shah and went into hiding. Shah registered a complaint against the trio on October 10."
A day after that, police traced Thasal and his friends and arrested them. Thasal informed the cops about Surve, who they finally chased down yesterday.
"We arrested him from Orlem in Malad on Tuesday and have secured his custody till December 24. We are trying to probe if he has cases registered in other police stations in the city," Nivatkar added.
Surve has two other cases of fraud pending against him.
u00a0
The Charkop police station had filed an FIR against him a few months back for a fraud of Rs 4 lakh while a complaint registered with the Kurar police station accuses Surve of swindling a man of Rs 3 lakh.
Police found out that he was a resident of Malad East, until he divorced his wife to move in with a high profile bargirl in Andheri.
They picked him up from Orlem in Malad. They haven't been able to recover the money from him as he has squandered it on his pursuit of prostitutes, cops say.
