Bhubaneswar, July 30: Police arrested a 45-year-old builder today for allegedly duping four people of Rs 25 lakh by promising them flats near Kurunti on the city outskirts.
The builder, Nirmal Behera, had floated a new real estate firm after being arrested on similar charges in August 2014.
In the earlier case, the accused had been arrested on charges of cheating Rs 1.1 crore of more than 100 persons on the pretext of providing them residential plots on the city outskirts.
The accused was then the managing director of Semax Builders Private Ltd, police said.
Behera had started his real-estate business in 2011 and had collected the money through his three offices in the city. Thirty-six cases have been registered against Semax Builders Pvt Ltd.
Police said the accused had spent around two years in jail and later floated another firm called Max Unitech Developers Pvt Ltd and started collecting money from the people on the pretext of providing flats in the housing project in Kurunti on the city outskirts.
The police also said that as many as three non-bailable warrants were also pending against the accused.
"Behera collected between Rs 5 and Rs 10 lakh as advance from the customers but neither provided them flats nor returned their money," said inspector in-charge of Saheed Nagar police station Kishore Chandra Mund.
"Consequently, four duped customers lodged a formal complaint against him on Saturday night following which he was arrested today," the police officer said.
Statistics available with the police revealed that 42 cases had been registered against builders in the city in 2015, which increased to 51 in 2016. The police had arrested around 40 builders last year.
"We suspect Behera of cheating many others in similar fashion. The accused deliberately floated another real estate firm after his previous firm faced a number of fraud cases," said a police officer.
"We are trying to ascertain the exact amount of money collected by the accused through the new real estate firm," the police officer also said.
