Jaipur: For nearly 15 years, a husband-and-wife duo evaded police, drifting from city to city under false identities after duping over 33,000 people of more than Rs 22 crore in a massive chit fund scam. Their luck ran out Thursday when a special Dausa police team tracked them to a house in Delhi’s Shakurpur and arrested them while they were running a modest mobile shop.SP (Dausa) Sagar identified the accused as Shriram Saini and his wife Neena Devi, residents of Baggad Road in Jhunjhunu district. The couple was living under the aliases Mukesh Kumar and Meena Devi, shifting frequently to avoid detection.The fraud dates back to Oct 2010 when six individuals, including the couple, allegedly floated chit fund and property firms that promised land plots and lucrative incentives. They lured thousands with offers of cars and motorcycles as commissions, police said. In Dausa alone, the syndicate duped people of several crores. In Jobner near Jaipur, they allegedly sold 150-200 plots in a fictitious colony without handing over possession, further swelling the number of victims.A case against them was first registered at Dausa Kotwali police station on Oct 5, 2010. Since then, the couple remained absconding with a bounty of Rs 20,000 on their arrest. They left behind a trail of cheated investors across Rajasthan, Delhi and Haryana.Dy SP (Dausa) Ravi Prakash Sharma said the breakthrough came using intelligence and technical surveillance. The team pieced together clues about the fugitives’ whereabouts. Investigators quietly gathered intelligence from neighbourhood newspaper vendors, vegetable sellers, dairy booths and grocery shops around the suspects’ temporary residence. Once identified, the aliases were stripped away, confirming they were the wanted couple.Police said the duo is wanted in several cases across Dausa district, including Kotwali and Bandikui, as well as in Jhunjhunu. They are accused of orchestrating one of the largest financial frauds in the region, preying on ordinary people with the promise of prosperity and leaving behind years of litigation and loss.
