MUMBAI: Cuffe Parade police have booked seven directors—all siblings—of a real estate developer for cheating around 70 investors of Rs 65 crore after promising them 15% annual returns and doubling their principal amount on completion of a construction project.
In his complaint, businessman Rajesh Shah of Multiline Corporation alleged that the Kothari brothers of RA Associates in 2015 collected money from him after promising lucrative returns. In 2020, the company stopped payments, but the brothers promised him allotment of properties as settlement. The company failed to do that as well, prompting the complainant and 69 other investors to approach police.
The FIR has been lodged against the seven Kothari brothers of RA Associates, Blue Rose Enterprises, RAK Constructions and RAK Realty for criminal breach of trust and cheating under Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (in Financial Institutions) (MPID) Act. EOW has taken over the investigation.
Rajendra Kothari, one of the directors, said “some misunderstanding” led to the FIR and police have wrongly invoked MPID Act. “The case has been filed in haste. We are in the process of settling the issue with the complainant. We had two meetings and are hopeful of sorting it out soon.”
As per the FIR, a business associate of Shah’s father, Chandrakant, introduced him to Ashok Kothari and Rajendra, who were engaged in real estate construction through their firms, in 2014. Based on their assurances, Chandrakant invested Rs 1.3 crore in RA Associates. The firm paid interests till Sept 2020. All payments stopped after that and repeated enquiries yielded no response, said the FIR. Shah found out that 69 other investors had also lost their money.
On April 15, 2024, the firm sent a letter to the complainant, saying 25,000sqft of Rera-approved flats in a residential complex in Lalbaug would be provided to the investors as settlement. The FIR said neither was a formal agreement executed nor was any property given to the investors.
