A man accused of defrauding Delhi’s Leela Palace hotel of 23 lakh following a nearly four-month stay last year while pretending to be a resident of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and an employee of the Abu Dhabi royal family allegedly escaped without paying a significant portion of the total bill.
An famous hotel in Sarojini Nagar, southwest Delhi, was conned out of more than Rs 23 lakh by a man posing as a high-ranking official of the UAE government.
According to the investigation, the individual stayed in the hotel for over three months before escaping with expensive goods. He had provided false identification documents at the time of the booking, claiming to be a “senior official of the UAE government.”
The incident occurred last year, according to the complainant in the case, hotel workers, and a lawsuit was filed on January 13 of this year. The complaint stated that one of their house guests spent more than three months in Room No. 127. He then ran away without paying the outstanding debts and after grabbing hotel items (silverware).
The visitor allegedly used a phoney business card to check into the hotel and pretended to be a high-ranking official of the United Arab Emirates, according to the police. Upon arrival, he also showed a residence card from the UAE.According to authorities, “it seems the guest gave these cards on purpose to create a false impression and earn additional trust with an objective to scam the hotel.”
In August and September 2022, the visitor paid a few portion payments totaling 11.5 lakh for lodging rates. But there were still more than Rs 23 lakh in unpaid balance. The probe also revealed that he had written a post-dated check for Rs 20 lakh, but there weren’t enough cash, thus it bounced. Later, the hotel personnel discovered that the room he had stayed in was missing items as well.
Police are looking into if the offender used the same scheme to con any other hotels.
An officer stated that every effort was being made to apprehend the perpetrator. The officer stated, “We got the complaint last year and, after conducting a thorough investigation, we registered a case. He had plotted the crime, according to the police. The hotel’s friendliness was also appreciated by the suspect. A case under IPC Sections 380 (theft in dwelling residence, etc.), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing handover of property), and 419 (punishment for defrauding by personation).
A similar incident involving the arrest of a man for defrauding 300 hotels was reported in 2016. He once escaped without paying his debts.
