Mumbai: Putting a major spanner in the full-throttle investigation launched by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a contentious property deal between family members of Iqbal Mirchi and senior NCP leader Praful Patel, the family members of the late gangster are learnt to have refused to join the agency probe.
Sources said that Mirchi’s wife, Hazra Memon, and sons, Junaid and Asif, have sent e-mails to the ED, expressing their inability to join the alleged multi-crore probe, saying that they were not in India. This, even though the proceeds of the laundered money, are said to have been used for terror financing.
Meanwhile, Patel, a former Union Civil Aviation Minister, who had been issued summons by the ED on Monday to join the probe, has neither affirmed his presence, nor has he sought leave for his scheduled appearance at agency’s Ballard Pier office on Friday.
“In all likelihood, he (Patel) is going to cooperate in the probe,” sources said, anticipating the NCP leader’s appearance.
Sources said that Hazra and her sons had been issued summons on October 14 to join the probe. However, then too they had not showed up. This time, while Hajra and Junaid claim to be in the UAE, Asif is holed up in London.
“They have also challenged the applicability of PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) against them on foreign soil,” sources said, adding that they are believed to be British citizens.
In fact, following the rebuttal, the ED now plans to approach the special court to issue a non-bailable warrant against the trio to facilitate their arrest and repatriation to India to face the probe.
Sources said that the questioning of Mirchi’s family members is the key to unravelling the mystery of a property transaction between Mirchi’s family members and Patel-promoted Millennium Developers.
The reality firm was controlled by Patel, who was also allegedly a signatory to the incriminating sale deed that was found during searches conducted by the agency at 11 locations in Mumbai and Bangalore, recently.
In furtherance to the deal, the land was used to construct the 15-storied tower, Ceejay House, at Dr Annie Besant Road in Worli, an address previously known as 'Shriniketan Building'.
Sources said, as per the deed, Mirchi's first wife, Hajra, got 9,000 sq ft carpet area on the third floor of the building and another 5,000 sq ft on the fourth floor (totalling 14,000 sq ft) in Ceejay House.
The properties were transferred to the fugitive's family in 2007 as per his beneficial interest in the land. The deed of confirmation, which is under the ED lens, features the firm (Millennium) as the ‘owners’, while Hazra, Junaid and Asif ( a minor then), feature as ‘co-owners’ who constituted 'attorney’, sources said. The agency suspects that the proceeds of the sales in the transaction had been laundered to Mirchi.
Interestingly, a Non-Banking Financial Company, said to be close to Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan, the alleged architects of the Rs 4355 crore loot in the PMC bank, is said to have been used to route Rs 2,186 crores in loans to a reality firm floated by Mirchi in Dubai — Sunblink Real Estate Pvt Ltd.
The ED suspects this was in lieu of the proceeds from his properties in Mumbai. However, senior ED officials refused to identify the NBFC, citing investigation confidentiality.
The ED claims that the Mirchi family owns 25 properties in London, of which 16 are operated by Hajra through two firms registered in the British Virgin Islands.
Six more companies are held by four UK-based companies and another three are held in London in the name of a UAE-based firm. The ED believes that most of these properties were obtained through the proceeds of Mirch’s crime syndicate in Mumbai.
