The Delhi Police arrested three people for allegedly cheating many on the pretext of providing them loans against mortgaging their property.

“The accused were identified as Vijay Porter (51), Chander Prakash (43), Kewal Krishna (49) and their woman aide for cheating complainant Mukul Paul Taneja of Rs 9 lakh,” said a senior police officer.

The complainant was a management consultant and was cheated by accused on pretext of providing him bank guarantee of Rs 50 crore in lieu of his residential property in 2015.

The accused have cheated several other people by using the same modus operandi. We are finding out the details of other victims,” said DCP (northwest) Vijay Singh.

“Porter and Prakash were held on April 18 from different areas in East Delhi while Krishna was arrested on Wednesday — also from East Delhi — following the complaint of the victim on October 30, 2015,” said DCP.

“Porter and Prakash had approached Taneja in March last year introducing themselves as liaison professionals working for State Bank of India (SBI) and dealing in sanction of loans. They also succeeded in convincing to provide him loan in the form of bank guarantee of Rs 50 crore sanctioned from a SBI branch in Parliament Street area in Delhi against his residential property,” the officer said.

“They demanded Rs 25 lakh from Taneja as facilitation fee but he agreed to pay Rs 9-10 lakh in parts,” said the officer, adding the accused took Rs 9 lakh from Taneja between September and October 2015 for getting the bank guarantee sanctioned.

“On October 30, 2015, Taneja was called by the accused at the SBI branch to provide the first instalment of Rs 10.80 crore of his bank guarantees. But the accused turned up and kept procrastinating on the pretext about delay in disbursement of said money. Thereafter, the victim realised of being duped and approached police,” the officer said.

Police said the arrested accused was passing through a difficult financial situation. Porter, the mastermind, hatched a plan to cheat people on the false pretext of getting them huge non-refundable loan amount sanctioned.

“He then roped in his friends Prakash, Krishna and a woman Aarti (name changed) in his gang to cheat people. He also stole some stamps from the SBI branch at Parliament Street. He used the same stamp the fake letters for duping people,” the officer said.