A woman wanted in 23 high-profile cases of cheating and fraud, including the Gurugram-Manesar industrial model and the township land grab scam, was arrested in Mumbai on Sunday, according to the Delhi Crime Branch. Ravinder Singh Yadav, Special Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch), said that the arrested woman has been identified as Sona Bansal, who is the wife of Atul Bansal. , “She was wanted in 23 cases of cheating registered in Delhi and Haryana by various law enforcement agencies at the central and state levels,” said Yadav. “The rest was made on the basis of the inputs received through sources,” Yadav added. , The ARSC team of the Crime Branch conducted the raid at a high-end society in Mumbai and arrested the accused, Sona Bansal, from there. Her husband, Atul Bansal, was, however, not found there, and his whereabouts are being ascertained, officials said. According to the Crime Branch, both of the accused are Delhi natives, but they were living in Mumbai under the assumed identities and ties of Mrs Sulochana, and Arun Gupta prepared fake and forged documents. , , Officials said that the accused, Atul Bansal, and his wife, Sona Bansal, were wanted in several high-profile white-collar economic crimes, including the Gurgaon-Manesar Industrial Model Township Land Grab Scam, amounting to Rs 1500 crore, stated the Crime Branch official. According to Special CP Yadav, both were the directors of the builder firm named after their son, “Aditya Build Well (ABW),” Infrastructure Limited. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had initiated a money-laundering investigation on the basis of an FIR registered at Manesar police station, in Gurugram, and thereafter the investigation was taken up by the Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and other individuals, affirmed the Crime Branch official. , , Several alleged persons, including Atul Bansal and his wife, Sona Bansal, of ABW Infrastructure Limited, were charge-sheeted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which was confirmed by the Crime Branch. , According to the officials, the ED discovered during its investigation that builders and private entities had taken land from farmers and landholders at nominal rates by instilling fear in them about the acquisition of their land. , , Believing the accused and unafraid of losing their land to an acquisition, the farmers and landholders sold their lands to such private entities, who ultimately sold them to various builders, who obtained licenses and gained some profits in a fraudulent manner, as stated by the officials. , Special CP Yadav confirmed that most of the land parcels were purchased by the ABW Infrastructure Ltd. group, which was controlled by Atul Bansal, Sona Bansal, and others. After obtaining licenses, A.B.W. Infrastructure Limited further sold the licensed and unlicensed lands and building licenses to some private persons or developers and thereby earned windfall profits. The CBI also registered a criminal case against the accused persons in September 2015 following allegations that private builders, in collusion with some public servants of the Haryana government, had bought around 400 acres of land from farmers and landowners of different villages in Gurugram district at throwaway prices, stated the official.
