by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Economy, News

Nira Radia Photo Courtesy Indiatv
New Delhi:(IANS) Niira Radia, the founder of Vaishnavi Communications whose taped telephone chats with some prominent people in India around eight years ago, including ministers, journalists and business tycoons became the matter of a probe, has now surfaced in the “Panama Papers” expose.
Her name (appearing as Nira Radia, in the documents investigated, minus the extra ‘i’) is allegedly linked to a company in British Virgin Islands, which her office has denied, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday.
In the article, as Part 3 of the expose on Indians having alleged offshore links, Radia is said to have figured prominently as a director in the 232 documents pertaining to the company listed in the tax haven, Crownmart International Group.
The list published by the newspaper on Wednesday also has the names of a top business tycoon in Bellary, a prominent industrialist and a chartered accountant — each of whom, which The Indian Express says were contacted for their responses, with many also sharing their versions.
Another article seeks to shows how the world’s largest currency note maker De La Rue had contracted a New Delhi businessman to help bag tenders in India, in return for a 15-percent commission.
The paper identifies the company as Aphra Consultants, linked to Somendra Khosla of New Delhi.
Amid these allegations, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan has said that not every off-shore company opened by an Indian national need be illegitimate, and that this would be the primary task of a probe team in which the central bank has been co-opted.
On Radia, the paper said: “An investigation of these papers shows the existence of one offshore entity owned by Radia, an International Business Company registered in the British Virgin Islands by Mossack Fonseka in 1994 named Crownmart International Group Limited.”
In response, her office said the said entity was set up by her late father Iqbal Narain Menon and that she was not a beneficiary. Also that Radia had disclosed her assets to the authorities in UK and India and that such information was personal and confidential for third parties.
In another article published on Wednesday, the newspaper said the Indian diamond merchants, who were probed earlier for having overseas accounts in Liechtenstein, British Virgin Islands and HSCB, have also surfaced in “Panama Papers”.
Prominent among them are Rosy Blue, one of the largest diamond traders in the world, and Chetan Mehta of the Belgium-based Gembel family.
The paper also reported that Harshad Ramniklal Mehta of Rosy Blue did not respond to its calls or queries, while Chetan Mehta said he has been a non-resident Indian living in Belgium and that the companies were shut longtime ago.
A part of the list, Hyderabad-based Moturi Srinivas Prasad said the off-shore entities were started as one dollar companies with the hope of doing business, but were closed.
Satish Modi of Modi Global was away from India, but an e-mail reply from his office said he is an NRI and laws were followed.
Others:
– Hyderabad-based businessman Bhavanasi Jaya Kumar who maintained he had nothing to do with offshore companies.
– UK-based Bhaskar Rao, whose son said the companies were not exactly active and that due procedures were followed.
– Civil construction business people Preetam Bothra and Sweta Gupta, with the latter when contacted, posing the query, as to why she should share any information with the newspaper.
– Ahmedabad-based Bhandari Ashok Ramdayalchand, with a response from someone at his residence that he was not interested in talking.
– Kolkata-based Ashok Malhotra who, the paper says, admitted to knowing about the off-shore accounts but kept changing his stories.
– Dehradun-based Sanjay Pokhriyal, who said the $10,000 endowment for a Panamanian fund allegedly linked to him was not his own money.
– Belary iron exporters Prasanna V. Ghotage and Vaman Kumar who the paper could not contact.
– Vadodara-based Pradeep Kaushikray Buch, who denied he had any such overseas company linked to him.
– Rahul Arunprasad Patel of Sintex Industries, who reportedly said he has several overseas companies but was not sure if the one named in the expose belonged to him.
– Thiruvananthapuram native and chartered accountant George Mathew, who said the linked companies belonged to clients and that Indian agencies had nothing to do with them.
The global expose has been conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) along with over 100 global media organisations, dubbed the “Panama Papers”, based on millions of documents of a Panama law firm Mossak Fonseca that helped in setting up off-shore entities.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already ordered a multi-agency probe team on the expose.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, Economy, News
New Delhi:(IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday ordered a multi-agency probe team on the global expose by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), dubbed the “Panama Papers”, which found over 500 Indians also had alleged offshore links.
“A multi-agency group is being formed to monitor the black money trail,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said here after the expose was published in The Indian Express. “Details of the assets worth Rs.6,500 crore has already been found,” he added.
As per a statement issued by his ministry, the probe team will comprise officers from the Central Board of Direct Taxes’ Financial Intelligence Unit, its Tax Research Unit as also officials from the Reserve Bank of India.
“The group will monitor the flow of information in each one of the case. The government will take all the necessary actions as required to get maximum information from all sources including from foreign governments to help in the investigation process,” the statement added.
The journalists’ consortium had said late on Sunday that its members and more than 100 other news organisations around the globe have found offshore links of some of the planet’s most prominent people. The list included over 500 Indians.
The details of the Indians with such offshore funds were published in The Indian Express. But whether or not such funds exist, and also if they were illegal is what the probe team ordered by Modi is expected to look into.
“In terms of size, the Panama Papers is likely the biggest leak of inside information in history – more than 11.5 million documents – and it is equally likely to be one of the most explosive in the nature of its revelations,” the consortium said of its investigation published.
In the context of the commitment of the central government to bring out undisclosed money both from abroad and from within the country, information brought out by any investigative journalism was welcome, the finance ministry said.
The ministry said in the past too, based on the investigations by ICIJ in 2013 — that showed the links of 700 Indians with business connection with off-shore entities — the agencies of the government were able to identify 434 persons as Indian residents.
It also said 184 persons admitted their relationship with such off-shore entities/transactions.
“Although, in the previous report of ICIJ, information relating to financial transactions/bank accounts was not available, the government authorities have detected credit in the undisclosed foreign accounts of such Indian persons in excess of Rs.2,000 crores.”
As a consequence, 52 prosecution complaints have been filed against the alleged offenders so far.
“The government is committed to detecting and preventing the generation of black money. In this context the expose of Panama Papers will further help the government in meeting the objective,” the finance ministry added.
The government expressed concern that tax havens were making countries like India suffer tax losses.
“The recent initiative of ‘Base Erosion’ and ‘Profit Shifting’ (BEPS) will help India and other countries in checking the practice of tax-avoidance through such tax havens. India is also fully committed to the BEPS initiative.”
In India, The Indian Express ran several pages of the investigation reports alleging, among other names, Bollywood superstarts Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, being directors in companies in Panama.
The two did not immediately respond despite efforts to contact them. Aishwarya Rai’s media adviser told the newspaper that the information was false. The spokesperson for Aishwarya Rai said “no” when IANS asked her if she intended to issue a statement.
Among those named in the report were Sameer Gehlaut of India Bulls and K.P. Singh of DLF. Vinod Adani, elder brother of industrialist Gautam Adani, politician Shishir Bajoria from West Bengal and Anurag Kejriwal of Loksatta Party were also alleged to have set up companies in tax havens.
Bajoria told the paper that that “erroneous beneficial owner information” was given by mistake.
The Express said it had carried out the investigations spread over eight months with several global newspapers. Many of the other persons named in the Express reports responded, some denying while others maintaining that they had worked within the laws of the country.
Among the global leaders named were 12 current and former world leaders, including Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family members. It also sought to reveal how associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly shuffled as much as $2 billion through banks and shadow firms.
In Russia, the state-run media organisations were silent on the subject. In Pakistan, however, Sharif’s son Hussain told Geo News that his family had not done anything wrong.