Anil Gote, the NCP MLA has alleged that the former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis got Rs 20 crore from RKW Developers Ltd after 2014, which has alleged links with late Iqbal Memon, an accused in 1993 bomb blast in Mumbai and a former confidant of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Gote spent four years in jail charged with counterfeiting, but he was never convicted.
Iqbal Mirchi alias Iqbal Memon was an Indian underworld figure, known as the right-hand man of India’s most wanted criminal, Dawood Ibrahim. Mirchi was often called the drug baron for his thriving narcotics business across Asia, Africa and Europe, according to various media articles.
BJP received a large sum as a donation from RKW Developers — a company being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for business transactions with Iqbal Mirchi. RKW Developers Ltd gave Rs 10 crore to the BJP in 2014-15. It revealed this in BJP’s filings to the Election Commission. They associate RKW Developers Ltd with Dewan Housing Finance Limited. They have also reported that RKW is the largest company donating individually to the ruling party.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has accused Dewan Housing Finance Corp. Ltd (DHFL) promoter Dheeraj Wadhawan of being the “prime mover” of a property deal between a company linked to him and erstwhile drug lord Iqbal Memon alias Iqbal Mirchi. The ED, which is investigating a money laundering-terror funding case against Memon, is also inquiring into the real estate deal.
In a 7,000-page chargesheet filed earlier this month, the agency has detailed how Wadhawan used DHFL to pay more than Rs 110 crore to Memon. Also, payments to the tune of 128.5 million UAE dirhams (approximately Rs 154 crore) were made to Memon via Culture Estate LLC, a Dubai-based company in which Wadhawan was a director until 2008.
The money laundering case relates to Memon’s Mumbai properties, which are being treated by the ED as the proceeds of crime. They sold three such properties to Sunblink, the company linked to Dheeraj Wadhawan. The latter has told the ED that he didn’t know Memon was a wanted man, but the agency said one of his brokers had alerted him about this. Dheeraj Wadhawan is linked with the Patra Chawl controversy, is also one of the prime fundraisers for BJP said its former leader Anil Gote.
