New Delhi: The ED on Friday afternoon arrested two close associates of Iqbal Mirchi, a close aide of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, in a money-laundering case with respect to a land deal in Mumbai's Worli, worth over Rs 225 crore.
While Mirchi himself died in August 2013, the Enforcement Directorate has arrested Haroun Aleem Yusuf, Chairman of a trust company with links to Mirchi and Ranjeet Singh Bindra, a broker instrumental to the deals that allegedly laundered proceeds of crime of behalf of Mirchi.
In fact, documents in possession with ED officials show alleged involvement of at least two big-shot builders in Mumbai, who have been named in the agency's remand application for the arrested accused.
According to the ED, Mirchi had acquired three properties - Sea View, Mariam Lodge and Rabia Mansion - in Worli through companies controlled and operated by him and his family members in 1986 for Rs 6.5 lakh.
The properties were purchased from Sir Mohammad Yusuf Trust, of which Yusuf is the current Chairman, through a company called Rockside Enterprises. The ED claims that the Trust company transferred all rights of the property to Mirchi in 1993, for which full payments had been made.
As per the financial probe agency, Mirchi's power of attorney holder, Humayun Merchant had approached Jayant B Soni, Director of Joy Home Creation Pvt Ltd and arranged a meeting between Soni and Mirchi in London sometime around 2007. Following this meeting, tenancy rights to the properties were first transferred to five nominee companies of Joy Home Creation, after which in 2007, the builder entered into an agreement with the Trust company, to pay Rs 11 crore to Merchant and Rs 4.25 crore to the Trust in exchange for the property rights. However, payment records showed that the Trust company received only Rs 25 lakh from this agreement, with the bulk of the money going to Mirchi's companies through Merchant. With appreciating property prices, Soni did not make the Rs 11 crore payment, as a result of which Mirchi allegedly threatened him to vacate the premises.
Later in 2010, another builder - Sunblink Real Estate Pvt Ltd entered into the project, engaging a broker - Ranjeet Singh Bindra to get the deal through. The deal to surrender all tenancy rights of the property was subsequently finalised with Sunblink agreeing to pay Rs 170.75 crore to Merchant, Rs 4.25 crore to the Trust company and Rs 50 crore to Joy Home Creation. The ED alleged that Sunblink had already paid Rs 127 crore to Merchant and that a witness statement shows Dirham 90 million paid through hawala in UAE to purchase a 5-star Hotel in Dubai, which was eventually acquired by Mirchi in 2010.
For Bindra's work in arranging the deal, he was to be paid nearly Rs 50 crore as brokerage, Rs 25-30 crore of which was already received by him through a fake conforming party by the name of Rinku Deshpande.