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COVER STORY: B.P. VERMA
A Simple Deal
One such shipment
was stopped by the special investigation unit of the customs in Chennai.
A rattled Kumar looked for an "insider" to help him out and
through a couple of local friends located Verma's close ally, K. Vijay
Pratap, an automobile engineer, who had nearly a decade ago made a documentary
film for the customs. The film had been commissioned by Verma when he
was director of publicity in the department. Pratap flew down to Delhi
and spoke to Verma-the CBI has damning tapes of the conversations which
it will produce in court. It was mutually agreed that Verma would sort
out the Chennai matter. He kept his word, by speaking to the chief commissioner
of customs at Chennai, M.V.S. Prasad. In the three-way conversations that
followed, Verma was heard telling Pratap that Prasad had promised to help
out A.K. Enterprises by freeing the bogus consignment on which the firm
was being allowed a duty drawback of nearly Rs 75 lakh.
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THE CONDUITS: Bhavna Pandey (right)
was a small-time fixer who flaunted her proximity with Verma to
grant favours. The dealings of Vijay Pratap led to Verma's arrest.
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Pratap called up his associate S.K. Ramani in
Chennai who flew down to Delhi with Rs 2.5 lakh in cash. The deal was
simple: Verma demanded Rs 2 lakh to clear the impounded consignment. According
to the intercepts in the possession of the CBI, Verma told Siddharth on
March 23 to collect the Rs 2 lakh from the Le Meridien hotel in Delhi
where Pratap had checked in with Ramani. Siddharth was, however, otherwise
occupied. He was at a party with school friend Rohit Jain, and could not
make it. He sent one of his managers, Rajiv Sharma. When Sharma set out,
the CBI followed him. After he collected the money from Pratap in the
hotel's Room No. 826, the CBI stalked him to a guest house in south Delhi's
Green Park. Here Siddharth received the money, ending Pratap's part of
the commitment. The next day, when Pratap rang Verma, there was a brief,
yet firm confirmation of the deal. "Haahn, mil gaya hai..."
Along with the Vermas, Pratap, Kumar and Sharma
(all arrested), there were other conduits who walked into the CBI trap-men
and women who helped Verma amass huge assets. Particularly interesting
were Bhavna Pandey, 35, and Mohan Gupta, 45. According to the CBI, both
actively fronted for the customs boss for his deals with agents.
Pandey is the typical "country girl"
who left Kumaon 10 years ago to make it big in Delhi. She had no qualifications,
apart from "pushy manners", and "networking skills".
These attributes helped. She first joined the Congress, then dated Samajwadi
Party leader Santosh Kumar Singh for a while, before running into Verma
in the mid-1990s.
Verma was the godfather. He helped her brother-in-law
in the customs get a "plum post" and Pandey remained beholden
and became a permanent feature in his life. For a woman who hasn't held
a job in Delhi nor has family income to fall back on, Pandey drove a Mitsubishi
Lancer. She, in fact, recently purchased a single-room flat in Saket in
south Delhi for about Rs 6 lakh. Over the years, and through her long
association with Verma, even her tastes have altered-CBI officers, for
instance, were exasperated by her insistence on being given bottled mineral
water during questioning last week. Investigators believe that she made
her fortune exploiting Verma's position by arranging transfers and postings,
and negotiating the clearance of difficult consignments.
Along with her, the other important link to
Verma's hidden wealth-now the subject matter of the CBI's two firs registered
against Verma and others-is Mohan Gupta. A Noida-based industrialist producing
pouches for pan masala powders, he doubled as another Verma frontman.
Property documents of Gupta's three-acre farmhouse on the Delhi-Gurgaon
border were found by the CBI in Verma's residence. Also found were papers
of Moon Maharani, a 66-room hotel in Nainital. The CBI suspects Verma
has a stake in both.
As for the CBI's stakes, there are quite a few.
The agency needs to show that its claims about Verma's assets are not
based on just one raid but backed by corroborative evidence. It needs
to explain how the money being collected on behalf of Verma was funnelled
into firms in which his son has interests. It also needs to get to the
bottom of the nexus between middlemen and women to break up the entire
network. Says M.S. Bali, CBI joint director: "We intend to investigate
all the details. That'll make it a strong case for us." On the success
of its findings will depend whether Op Verma becomes a future deterrent
for the wayward or a one-time catch.
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