Duped: Indian man stays in five-star hotel for two years, checks out without settling $70,000 bill
Roseate House
An Indian man managed to dupe a five-star hotel in the national capital New Delhi by staying for almost two years without shelling out a penny.
The suspect guest identified as Ankush Dutta stayed inRoseate House, situated in Aerocity near Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport for a total of 603 days from 30 May 2019 to 22 January 2021 and owed over $70,000 (Rs 58 lakh) before checkingout surreptitiously.
Hotel staffer involved
An FIR has been lodged by Vinod Malhotra, on behalf of Bird Airports Hotel Private Limited, the company which operates Roseate House. In the FIR, it has been alleged that Dutta had the help of a hotel staffer named Prem Prakash,head of the Front Office Department to pull off the 'Anna Sorkin-esque' scam.
Notably, Prakash hadaccess to the hotel computer system to track the dues of all guests. The hotel management believes that Prakash might have received some cash asbribe from Dutta for letting him overstay his visit by manipulating the in-house software system.
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“A criminal conspiracy was hatched by guest Mr Ankush Dutta along with some known and unknown hotel staff, including Mr Prem Prakash with a motive to gain wrongfully and deprive the hotel of its rightful dues,” read the FIR.
“In pursuance of the said conspiracy, the alleged staff of the hotel forged, deleted, added accounts entries and falsified a large number of entries in the account of the said guest Ankush Dutta in the Opera software system of the hotel,” it added.
Prakash fudged records
The FIR statesthat Prakash not only fudged the data of Dutta's stay, but he also fabricated accounts to show that other guests, who stayed in the hotel, paid for the conman, which obviously turned out to be bogus.
“The scrutiny of record of the alleged officials of the hotel revealed that they created several fake and false pending bills to benefit Ankush Dutta by adopting various ways like by removing room nights from his bills, transferring his debits into the bills of other guests’ bills, using settled bills of other guests by incorporating his name in the bill, etc,” the FIR said.
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The hotel noticed that three cheques of Rs 10 lakh, Rs 7 lakh and Rs 20 lakh on different dates were made by Dutta but all of them bounced. Once again, Prakash did not bring this fact to the notice of the hotel management.
Usually, hotel management isinstructed to settle a guest's outstanding dues within three days or 72 hours. However, if the timeline is crossed, the issue should be brought in front of the CEO and Financial Controller (FC) to seek a suitable course of action. In this case, Prakash neither settled the dues nor sent the information to the CEO and FC of the hotel.
The police have launched an investigation after conducting a preliminary inquiry. The hotel, meanwhile, has demanded strict legal action saying the culprits have committed "criminal offences, criminal breach of trust, forgery and falsification of accounts".
(With inputs from agencies)
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