suspected diamond and gold fraudster needed in India over a $1 billion rip-off has been present in London having fun with an “costly life-style” along with his household, the Excessive Courtroom has been instructed.
Jatin Mehta is alleged to have carried out a complicated fraud along with his spouse and sons and one different conspirator to plunder a fortune from an Indian gold bullion and jewelry producer and a diamond firm.
The alleged rip-off concerned a fancy net together with firms within the United Arab Emirates, Britain, Singapore and Eire, and sham derivatives buying and selling, gold dealing and mortgage defaults to “conceal the method of funds to fraudulent locations”.
When authorities in Delhi started investigating, Mr Mehta and his household renounced their Indian citizenship and obtained passports from St Kitts and Nevis — which has no extradition treaty with India — earlier than vanishing. However the Excessive Courtroom has been instructed that they’ve “been found to be residing in three homes in London — in St John’s Wooden, Maida Vale and Hampstead Backyard Suburb”.
The revelations got here as a listening to was held on the Excessive Courtroom following a US $1 billion worldwide freezing order in opposition to Mr Mehta, his spouse Sonia, their sons Vishal and Suraj, and enterprise affiliate Haytham Obidah.
It’s primarily based on allegations that the Mehta household was liable for a “extremely subtle fraud” from two diamond firms, Winsome Diamonds and Without end Valuable Diamonds, managed by Mr Mehta.
Ian Wilson QC, representing firms making an attempt to hint the fortune, known as for Mr Mehta and his household to offer a full account of the place the cash had gone. Mr Wilson stated the one rationalization provided by the Mehtas was that the tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} had been misplaced by “catastrophic international trade and commodities derivatives” buying and selling by firms within the UAE, however this had been “proven to be false”.
Mr Mehta and his household stay topic to a worldwide freezing order. The order was made by one other Excessive Courtroom choose, Mr Justice Johnson, at an earlier non-public Rolls Constructing listening to.
Legal professionals for Mr Mehta and his household are contesting the claims.
However Mr Justice Johnson, on the earlier listening to, stated that there was “a very good, debatable case” that they’d been liable for a “very substantial fraud” which “was each extremely subtle and carried out on an infinite scale”.
He added that there was “an actual threat of dissipation” of the allegedly stolen cash and that though the suspected crime had taken place “a while in the past” the Mehtas “whereabouts was really unknown” till not too long ago once they had been tracked down by liquidators to addresses in London.
“Their location had not been recognized both by the Indian prison authorities or anybody else,” the choose stated. Mr Justice Johnson added that prison proceedings had begun in India in opposition to Jatin, Sonia and Suraj Mehta and that “it’s the place of the Indian Enforcement Directorate that… Jatin Mehta fled India with the intention to keep away from prison prosecution”.
The worldwide freezing order issued in opposition to the Mehta household and Mr Obidah, who has not been traced, covers £743,176,152.77, the equal of the US $932,466,942 declare in opposition to them.
