Man held for cheating, forgery | Mangaluru News
Mangaluru: Kankanady Town police arrested an accused in connection with an alleged case of forgery and cheating involving fake trade licences and property tax receipts. The accused is Prithviraj Shetty alias Munna,25, from Ujjodi.City police commissioner Sudheer Kumar Reddy CH stated on Wednesday that the case came to light when Balakrishna Suvarna, of Sri Raj Durga Furniture Works, approached the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) to collect documents for a court-related matter. There, he was informed that his trade licence and property tax were not renewed. However, Suvarna was in possession of what appeared to be valid and up-to-date documents. Upon verification, it was found that the accused took Rs 27,990 from Suvarna and handed him forged documents. Following this, the MCC commissioner filed a complaint with the Kankanady Town police, and an investigation was launched. Meanwhile, another case was also registered at the Barke police station by Devang K Patel, owner of Lakshmi Hardware Works at Pumpwell, who alleged that Shetty similarly duped him using fake documents. The accused was on the run and was hiding in various locations across Kerala. Acting on specific information that he returned to Kinnigoli, the Kankanady police arrested him on July 25. During interrogation, Shetty revealed that he was handling accounts for Devang Patel’s business after his father, Ganesh Shetty, who previously worked there as a commercial accountant, became unwell in 2004. Shetty admitted to taking money from Devang Patel and Balakrishna Suvarna under the pretext of renewing the 2025-26 trade licences and paying property taxes. He accessed the MCC trade licence and property tax websites using the business owners’ mobile numbers to obtain OTPs, downloaded the previous year’s documents, edited dates and details using third-party apps, and printed forged copies to hand over to the victims. Police have seized the devices and tools used to create the fake documents. The accused was produced before a court and is currently in judicial custody. Further investigation is ongoing in both Kankanady and Barke police station cases to determine if more businesses were defrauded in a similar manner.
