The Mumbai crime branch has recovered Rs 13.63 crore in cash and valuables from Khar resident Hiren Bhagat, the sixth accused in the Rs 164 crore extortion bid against a city developer. The gang threatened the developer with arrest in an Enforcement Directorate (ED) case intending to extort money. The crime branch additionally found documents linked to various cases under investigation by the ED and the Mumbai police’s Economic Offences Wing at accused Hiren Bhagat’s residence.
Police brought Bhagat to court on Tuesday (6th February), seeking an extension of his custody. The court remanded him in custody until 12th February. Six of his associates are also in police custody. In the meantime, police stated that they have received three more complaints against Bhagat accusing him of extorting money from them.
The police informed the court that they had seized items worth Rs 13.63 crore from Bhagat’s flat, driver’s residence, and bank vaults in his sister’s name. During Bhagat’s interrogation, police seized three weapons, 150 live cartridges, gold ornaments, expensive watches, and Rs 5.13 crore in Indian and foreign currency, as well as a walkie-talkie and a radio frequency detector.
The police told the court that they had recorded Hiren’s sister Runali Bhagat’s statement adding that the items kept in the bank locker in Runali’s name belonged to her brother Hiren Bhagat.
The police stated that during the investigation, they identified two bank accounts in his sister’s name at Karnataka Bank and seized gold worth Rs 7.19 crore, Rs 67 lakh in Indian currency, Rs 56.96 lakh in foreign currency, luxury watches, and other agreements from the bank’s Bandra branch. Moreover, the police said that Hiren Bhagat also bought a flat in Dubai worth Rs 3.5 crore under his sister’s name adding that they are verifying this information.
“Bhagat’s phone is locked, so we are taking the help of cyber experts and expect sizable amount of evidence to be extracted from the device,” a police officer from unit 9 of the crime branch said.
“…Bhagat has been using Australian SIM cards, and private VPN (where the connections are secured). We have given his mobile phones to the state forensic lab to extract the contents,” public prosecutor Randdhir Yelaave informed the court.
Meanwhile, Hiren Bhagat’s counsel Girish Kulkarni said that Bhagat is a businessman and has nothing to do with the five accused in the case. He further claimed that Bhagat had obtained licenses from Mumbai Police for the three weapons found. Kulkarni added that the main accused in the case, builder Satish Dhanuka has been granted interim bail already.
Notably, Hiren Bhagat was arrested on 1st February by a crime branch team led by Inspector Dayanayak after a builder claimed he demanded Rs 164 crore in payment after a dispute with a real estate developer. The builder claimed to have paid Bhagat Rs 25 lakh.
Rajendra Shirsath, Raesh Anand Kumar Kediya, Kalpesh Bhosle, Avnish Shivkant Dubey and Amay Sawekar were arrested on the 21st and 22nd of January after the crime branch’s unit 9 launched a probe into the matter. Notably, Rajendra Shirsath is the working president of Congress from the western suburbs.
This comes after Bandra police station registered an FIR on 10th January in connection with the extortion case based on an FIR filed by the promoters of Omkar Developers. Allegedly, the accused persons were working on behalf of another builder Satish Dhanuka of Dhanuka Developers. There is a dispute between the two groups over a project they were developing together. The project was cancelled and then handed over to Omkar Developers, as Dhanuka Developers allegedly did not fulfil the conditions for the development work. After winning the project alone, Omkar Developers paid Rs 8.10 crore to Dhanuka Developers as expense charges.
But Satish Dhanuka maintained grudges against the company, believing that Omkar Developers was behind the removal of his company from the project. Therefore, Satish Dhanuka planned to extort Rs 164 crores from Omkar Developers using the ED’s name and got the other accused involved in the plan.
In the meanwhile, the police have received three more complaints of extortion against Hiren Bhagat.
