Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The city crime branch arrested a land Mafioso with a Rs 50,000 bounty on his head from Nagpur, an official said here on Friday. The accused had duped people of crores through multiple land frauds and had at least 10 cases registered against him in different cities across the country.

To evade arrest, he had travelled to several places, including Sharjah, Dubai, Hyderabad, Nashik, Delhi and Mumbai. Additional DCP (Crime) Rajesh Dandotiya said that the accused, Ahmed Ziwani of Nagpur, had established a construction company, Phoenix Infra, in Vijay Nagar area in 2005. He promised to develop residential colonies and sell plots to people and collected Rs 7 lakh each from at least 14 people in Vijay Nagar alone.

It is estimated that he duped people of over Rs 2 crore in Vijay Nagar. Later, he shut down his company in 2014 and fled, and a case of land fraud was registered against him at the Vijay Nagar police station. Ahmed had similar cases registered against him in Betma, Kishanganj, Bhopal, Nashik, Nagpur, Raipur and Mumbai.

He had been absconding for a long period, frequently changing locations to evade the police. The accused is currently being interrogated to gather information about his other previous criminal activities. Police believe that the number of fraud victims might increase.

Modus operandi

The accused showed plots of land in residential colonies in Natural Valley (Betma Khurd), Mohana and Shamli. After collecting crores through fraudulent contracts, he did not register the plots in buyers’ names and duped them. Ahmed Ziwani had also conducted multiple seminars to deceive people, which were uploaded on YouTube. In these sessions, he provided tips to people on earning quick money,