Mumbai: Loan racket busted, 7 held, cars worth Rs 6 cr seized

Seven persons were arrested forallegedly operating a racket in which luxury cars were beingsold and mortgaged after buying them through loans using bogusdocuments, a Mumbai Crime Branch official said on Tuesday.

He said 19 cars, including luxury ones like Audi,Mercedes, MG Hector, Mini Cooper, totaling Rs 6 crore, wereseized by the Crime Branch's Unit V.

''The probe started after a man filed a complaint atKurla police station on January 13 that he was cheated of Rs9.85 lakh by three persons who sold him two cars that had beenbought on loans procured through fake documents,'' he said.

The Crime Branch found the racket had links to citieslike Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Indore, Lucknow, besides Mumbai,said DCP (Crime) Prakash Jadhav, adding that a team underSenior Inspector Jagdish Sail arrested three persons fromWagle Estate in neighbouring Thane.

So far seven people have been arrested and effortswere on to nab more people involved in this racket, he said.

Probe is underway to check if banks and finance firms,which forwarded the accused car loans, are involved in theracket, the DCP added.