How a man tricked a 5-star hotel into staying free... for 603 days

WASHINGTON (TND) — A customer stayed at a distinguished 5-star hotel for 603 consecutive days and didn't pay a dime. Now, the hotel is trying to collect on a bill that tops $70,000.

It all began on May 30, 2019, when Ankush Dutta, a man from the far northeast of India, checked into the Roseate House for what was scheduled to be a one-night stay, according to the India Express.

The hotel is near theIndira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, India.

Six-hundred and three days later, on January 22, 2021, Dutta checked out of the hotel without paying a cent. The hotel didn't find out about the incident until this year while conducting a records check, the Economic Times reports.

It turns out, Dutta may have had help from hotel staff to pull off his stay, which the hotel says cost more than $70,000 USD. That's more than $115 per night.

An investigation is underway into Dutta and the hotel's head of the front office, Prem Prakash, who was booked on criminal conspiracy, forgery and cheating charges.

The staff of the hotel allegedly forged, deleted, added and falsified a large number of entries in the account of the said guest in the Opera software system of the hotel," police said in a report. "This system is used to maintain and monitor stay/visit of guests and their accounts. The accounts were falsified to conceal the actual outstanding dues from the senior management to avoid detection of their willful illegal acts.”

Police said Dutta worked with Prakash to hide his stay and outstanding bills from senior management. Prakash was in charge of maintaining accounts like Dutta's.

“As per hotel rules, if a guest owes Rs 50,000 + [approximately $609 USD] to the hotel, the staff has to inform the seniors and push the guest for payment. However, this was not done in Dutta’s case. We believe Prakash forged the records. He even removed Dutta’s name[s] from daily reports where his hotel bills were stated,” said a senior police officer.

Police believe Prakash intentionally forged the documents to allow Dutta to stay for so long for free.

“The motive behind the large-scale forgeries and falsification of accounts of Dutta was to siphon off cash payments made by him," police said.

Dutta has a history with the hotel where he has previously made cash payments.

"The scrutiny of record of the alleged officials of the hotel revealed that they created several fake and false pending bills to benefit Dutta by adopting various ways like 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 police report stated. "The guest and the staffers resorted to several ways to avoid paying bills. They owe more than Rs 58 lakh to the hotel. They deleted entries, forged reports, gave forged cheques and documents, and cheated the hotel by misusing its electronic system."