India's intelligence department is investigating reports that a fraudster sold an American businessman the Prime Minister's residence in the heart of New Delhi recently, a leading daily reported on Sunday.
The businessman forked out 35 million rupees ($A1.02 million) for the house that was up for sale on a website as a "huge sprawling mansion in the heart of Lutyen's Delhi with running water and electricity", the Hindustan Times said.
He soon received the title deed for the house and arrived in the Indian capital late in March to take possession of the house for an office he planned to set up only to discover he had been cheated.
