Cops bust fake property document racket in Chennai, two held

CHENNAI: A quiet apartment in Nesapakkam turned out to be the hub for a document forgery racket as the Central Crime Branch (CCB) uncovered a hidden room packed with printers, fake rubber stamps, and forged paperwork used to facilitate property fraud across the city. Two men running the operation were arrested on Wednesday. The accused Bharathiraja (44) of Kolathur, and Jahabar Sadiq (42) of Nesapakkam, had allegedly been supplying forged pattas and other documents for years. The racket surfaced after Subramani (55) of T Nagar, realised his 4,715 sq ft plots in Madipakkam was sold using fabricated documents including a fake death certificate declaring him dead and a bogus legal heir certificate naming a woman, Priya of KK Nagar, as his sole heir. He estimated his losses at around Rs 2 crore. Priya, Balasundara Arumugam and Solomonraj were arrested first. Investigators later picked up the masterminds Rakesh, 36, of KK Nagar, and Karthik, 54, of Madipakkam followed by Venkatesan, 44, traced to Bengaluru.