The police has arrested a politically powerful realtor who made hundreds of crores of rupees by literally selling the “Bay of Bengal” as “land” to many companies, including Indian Oil Corporation.
Devadas Reddy, 60, arrested from Minjur, near Chennai, is said to be worth around Rs 1,000 crores. Apart from the “sea”, he had also sold river beds and canals to companies in the suburban northern industrial belt as well as to individuals.
Reddy’s strategy was to convince buyers that the sea had encroached upon the particular area, and once the sea receded the buyer could take possession of the land.
Impressed by his smooth talk, IOC had paid Rs 26 crores for 106 acres of land. But when IOC’s legal department tried to verify the documents they found that many of the survey numbers listed were either seashore, or river beds or canals.