In 2025, Bhupendra Singh, a mining and construction contractor from Ahmedabad , finally got what he had been pursuing for 13 years: a letter from the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) sanctioning the payment of Rs 45 crore owed to him for a high-profile government project and 23 government treasury cheques.

Police said these were handed to him by Kushal Sameer Mehta, who he had been told worked with government ministries in Delhi and could get his work done. By then, he and Mehta had been in touch for eight years, over the course of which he had paid Mehta over Rs 3 crore, desperately hoping that Mehta would quicken the pace of the bureaucratic process.

When he had first been introduced to Mehta in 2017, police said, he had already been waiting for his dues for five years.…