Mumbai bullion firm MD faces NBW in hawala scam

In a nearly Rs5,400 crore hawala scam, a special court for Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Ahmedabad issued a

non-bailable warrant against Prithviraj Kothari, Managing Director of Mumbai based Riddhi Siddhi Bullion Limited (RSBL) on Tuesday.

Termed as one of the biggest Hawala rackets, it is being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office in Gujarat. The sources in ED office informed that Kothari is the same person who helped Surat-based notorious Hawala operator Afroze Fatta to send over Rs1,000 crore to his companies in Dubai.

ED officials believe that the money was later shifted to different countries, including Singapore, HongKong, Switzerland and USA. According to them if they could lay hands on Kothari and his close aide Rajesh Jain based in Dubai, they would be able to put a lid on majority of hawala rackets in India.

The ED had in March 2014 busted a multi-crore Hawala scam during

their search operations in offices of some diamond traders, including Afroze Fatta and Madanlal Jain, in Surat. Fatta and Jain were mere front-end and the real kingpins could be Prithviraj Kothari and Rajesh Jain.

This illegal business is being done over the past decade, claimed an official, adding, “instead of their earlier modus operendi of over valuating diamonds, the accused resorted to forged documents. These activities they might have carried out from Diamond & Jewellery Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Surat.”

They alledgedly forged documents to make bogus import bills that indicate import of diamonds and money was sent overseas between 2013 end and

beginning of the year 2014, said the officials, adding that they had submitted forged document to a branch of ICICI Bank in Surat.

During investigation in the alleged multi-crore scam that may lead investigators to establish the money trail in the 2G telecom scams, the officials come to know that all the Dubai and Hongkong-based companies were controlled by Prithviraj Kothari, Rajesh Jain and Mumbai-based diamond dealer Manshukh Sanghavi. Prithviraj Kothari’s Dubai-based nephew Raju

Kothari helped him control the flow of money into and from Dubai. Indian operation was managed by another nephew of Prithviraj — Rakesh Kothari, who is already behind the bars.

The officials also probing that whether there is any link with former Union Telecom minister A Raja, who allegedly used Chennai based JG Group to transfer monies of 2G Telecom scam to Dubai based Mycon General Trading Company. The Kotharis and Jains also seem to be involved in transfer monies from the Rs4,000-crore cricket betting scam that was unearthed from Vadodara few months back.