Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned a top-notch solicitor for questioning next week in connection with a suspected money laundering and terror financing probe involving the late drug kingpin Iqbal Mirchi.
Ajay Vazirani, a partner in a well-known Nariman Point-based solicitor firm, Hirani & Co, who had been questioned twice in the last fortnight, will be questioned again in the coming week in the backdrop of findings that he had helped to launder a massive amount paid by a realty firm in Mumbai into firms owned by Mirchi in Dubai in 2010.
ED sources said that Vazirani’s questioning holds key to identify and seek details of the foreign bank accounts from where payments made by the realty firm were diverted to accounts in Dubai and other overseas countries.
Vazirani’s name cropped up during the questioning of Ranjit Singh Bindra, a Bandra-based property broker, who had been arrested for receiving Rs 30 crore as brokerage in lieu of striking a deal for three of Mirchi’s properties in Worli with the realty firm, Sunblink Realty Pvt Ltd.
These properties, admeasuring 1,537 sq metres, include Mariam Lodge, Sea View and Rabia Mansion, and had been sold off to Sunblink after evicting “fake tenants” arranged by Mirchi’s front man, Humayun Merchant.
Though on paper the property deal was of around Rs 227 crore, ED suspects that in reality the amount was around Rs 2,187 crore, which had been laundered to Dubai through the hawala channels after routing the amount (remitted by Sunblink) through fake bank accounts opened in Chennai. A NBFC, which is presently under the ED scanner, had allegedly facilitated the funds to Sunblink through loans.
Vazirani, as per ED’s findings, had facilitated the payments to Mirchi (from Sunblink) by preparing the relevant documents. “That was essentially hawala transaction. The money withdrawn in Chennai had been sent to a web of shell companies in Dubai, from where the amount was transferred to accounts of companies controlled by Mirchi in Dubai,” sources said. The directorate suspects that part of the transaction could have been used for terror financing. Vazirani was initially evasive during his questioning. “However, when he was shown the entries in his passport matched with Bindras, he admitted to having travelled to Dubai with the latter,” sources said. “Vazirani also admitted to having met Mirchi’s family members in Dubai,” sources added.
Vazirani is learnt to have been paid anything between Rs 150-200 crore for facilitating the transfer of the proceeds of the crime, sources added.
On Friday, Bindra along with Rinku Deshpande, who had played her role as a “fake confirming agent” for the deal had been remanded in judicial custody.
