2 Gurugram doctors lose Rs 35 lakh in hospital loan fraud

Gurugram: In a fraud case reported from the city, two doctors cum owners of a private multi-speciality hospital fell prey to loan fraud and lost around Rs 35 lakh following which the police have registered a case in connection.

According to the police, the doctors were promised that they would get a loan from foreign investors to expand their hospital however, they were scammed and lost their money.

The victims have been identified as Dr Himanshu Gupta and Dr Vaibhav Bhola, owners of Nivaran Multi Speciality Hospital on the Old Delhi-Gurugram Road in Sector 23A and the suspects - Suresh Yadav, a resident of DLF 2 and Shavi Verma from Zirakpur in Punjab.

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According to a TOI news report, the doctors were trying to arrange funds at low interest rates to expand their hospital. The incident dates back to December 2023 when the doctors were approached by Suresh who offered to facilitate a loan at nominal or no interest in the form of external commercial borrowings from foreign entities.

Yadav then introduced the doctors to Verma, whom they met at his office in Zirakpur. The suspects sought Rs 35 lakh from the doctors on the condition that they would return it and charge a 10% commission on the loan amount later.

In their complaint, the doctors alleged that they had consented to the conditions and handed over a sum of Rs 35 lakh in cash to Suresh. Allegedly, Suresh had assured the doctors that either he or Verma would return the amount if they were unable to secure a sanctioned loan.

The suspects informed them on February 26 that the loan was sanctioned by a firm in the UK and asked them to send their hospital documents and bank statement to it through email.

As per The Daily, Dr Bhola said, “As per his instructions, we sent documents related to our business expansion plan to the email ID given by Verma. We were suspicious since the name of the company he had mentioned was different from the company’s name in the email ID. But Shavi Verma assured us that the email provided belonged to a consultant firm handling all processes for the loan provider."

Following this, on February 27, the doctors were given a 'loan agreement' to sign. After signing, they received an email confirming the transfer of a loan of around Rs 3 crore in euros from an international bank to their account.

“As soon as we received the mail, Verma started demanding his commission. But we did not pay since the amount was not credited into our bank account,” Dr Bhola said.

“The next day, we received a loan agreement copy which was signed and sent back to the foreign firm via email. We received another email soon in which a SWIFT code for 332204 Euros loan disbursal was shared and the suspects mounted pressure for commission,” Dr Bhola added.

A senior police officer told HT, "The doctors contacted their bank and provided the SWIFT code but were surprised to learn that it was non-existent. The suspects later sent a loan disbursal letter from another bank in Frankfurt. Doctors again approached the bank for verification which informed them that they had communicated with their Frankfurt counterparts who refused to make any such transaction."

“On March 1, the suspects sent the doctors the statement of another foreign bank, which has branches here, too, showing loan disbursal in their account. The doctors approached one of the branches of the bank whose authorities confirmed that the statement and SWIFT code sent to them was fake,” he said, adding that the suspects later stopped responding to the doctors’ calls after threatening them.

After finding all the emails to be fake, the doctors approached the police and filed a case under sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 465 (punishment for forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will etc), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 20B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The police are currently investigating the case to nab the suspects.

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