The Malad police have booked a couple – Reena and Gaurav Shah – for allegedly defrauding 25 persons of Rs1.63 crore under the pretext of providing work visas. In a similar case, the police also booked Asiel Travel owner Divyesh Patel, who allegedly took Rs79 lakh from a businesswoman under the pretext of providing a visa.
Patel already has four cases of cheating against him. In the first case, the Shah couple shut down their Malad office and are absconding. The police said that the number of complainants is expected to increase, and a lookout notice has been issued against the two suspects. The complainant in the case is Sarika Dharmadhikari, 46, a resident of Malvani, and an employee of a private company.
Aspiring to travel to Canada for work, she came into contact with the husband-wife duo and learned that they operated a visa consultancy office in Kachpada. After meeting them, she deposited Rs7.16 lakh into their Axis Bank account. However, the couple failed to provide the visa within the specified period and did not return her money.
Dharmadhikari approached the police after she found that the couple had defrauded several people of crores of rupees. The case against Patel is of cheating Bengaluru resident Sunayna Peruri, who runs a visa company. She had given him work to proces 62 work visas but got a few visit visas. The police probe revealed that Patel had submitted fake documents for visas, causing the affected persons to face bans in Canada.
