JOIN USSo what’s next after Ravi Pujari’s arrest?
For the Karnataka police, Ravi Pujari is one of the biggest ever catches. A high ranking policeman, involved in the undercover operation to bring Pujari to Bengaluru, says the arrest will lead to sweeping changes in the underworld. A police team from Bengaluru travelled to Senegal in West Africa and brought Pujari to the city on Monday.
Preparation time
Bhaskar Rao, Bengaluru police commissioner, says preparations to nab Ravi Pujari began two years ago. “The police, led by Additional Director General of Police Amar Kumar Pandey and Bengaluru Joint Police Commissioner Sandeep Patil, went about their investigation in a sustained, tight-lipped and silent manner. We were determined to get him. Our agenda was to get back the fugitive and restore people’s confidence in the police,” says Rao.
Pujari was a fugitive who unleashed terror in India sitting far away. In Bengaluru, he has 47 cases against him in Bengaluru alone, the biggest one being the 2007 murder of two employees of Shabnam Developers in Jayanagar. “There was a lot of power flowing from him and he had henchmen across the country. The moment he is not there, there is a vacuum. There is nobody to take his position because people like Pujari never let a second person grow,” a top police official says.
Who will he name?
In India, Pujari’s arrest has sent shockwaves among those who colluded with him, a police source says. The Bengaluru police have obtained custody of Ravi Pujari till March 7. “We have already received calls from Maharashtra and Gujarat asking for him as they also have cases against him. What he says is sure to lead to big scandals,” the source says. Police say gangsters like Pujari use loopholes in citizenship and privacy laws to escape from countries where they commit crimes. They target rich businessmen, film stars, politicians, money lenders and builders and run extortion rackets.
“They jump bail, get fake passports and misuse technology to settle in countries where enforcement is lax,” a top police officer says. Gangsters never use regular phone networks; they use VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) instead, making tracking a challenge for the police.
Taxman’s perspective
A senior officer with the investigative wing of the income tax department says big time gangsters invest in multiple countries and settle in a country where they commit no crime. “They never operate from India, but they always have extortion rackets running here,” he says.
They invest in India because land titles and records are never clear. The database is weak and it takes a long time to procure a document, the officer says. “Sometimes details stored on CDs go corrupt and it is hard to recover details. When judicial procedures are long-drawn, underworld dons take advantage. They step in and offer to settle disputes. They demand a fee from both parties,” he explains.
Gangsters mostly deal in cash. “They tie up with people in Goa and farmers on the outskirts of cities like Bengaluru and Noida. They work with scrap dealers who deal only in cash,” he says. Some bank officials are also part of the clandestine network.
Dubai is a hotspot because the government there doesn’t levy income tax.
Gangs create fake invoices to transfer cash between countries. “For example, they send coir carpets from India to Dubai. The party receiving the carpets will then make an invoice for Kashmiri carpets, which are way more expensive,” says the officer.
High life abroad
Going by police accounts, crime lords in the league of Pujari live it up, just like the dons you see in the movies. “They hang out with girls at casinos and have a fetish for expensive cars. They bribe the police heavily, and that is how they escape action in the countries they hole up in,” says a top policeman.
The dons think they are invincible but at some point, start to regret what they have done. That is when they begin to think of how their crimes will haunt their future generations.
‘My name is Anthony Fernandes’
Ravi Pujari changed his name to Anthony Fernandes and moved to Burkina Faso in 2005. There, he started an Indian restaurant called Maharaja.
Burkina Faso is a small, land-locked country in West Africa. Pujari promoted sports and came across as a generous philanthropist. He made a show of helping the poor, police say. “He took on this camouflage because he wanted to carry on his illegal activities under the radar,” a senior policeman told Metrolife.
salman, shah rukh... He called Bollywood stars
Ravi Pujari moved from Malpe in coastal Karnataka to Mumbai.
He started off in crime as a member of Chota Rajan’s gang.
He moved to Dubai in the late 1990s and began extortion from builders.
After a shooting, he moved to Australia.
Between 2009 and 2013, he tried to extort money from Bollywood stars.
He called Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Karan Johar, Rakesh Roshan, and Shahrukh Khan.
In 2019, he made extortion calls to many ministers in Kerala.
On January 21 he was arrested in Dakar, Senegal.
He was arrested on February 23, and brought to Bengaluru a day later.
Left India 25 years ago
Ravi Pujari left India in 1994 and has been on the run for almost 25 years.
He has lived across the world, under different names and identities, in places such as Uganda, Malaysia, Nepal, Burkina Faso and Senegal. “He lived a law-abiding life there but continued his crimes elsewhere,” says a senior police officer. The Senegal government and embassy were supportive of the Karnataka police effort to bring Pujari back. His extradition was approved and the Supreme Court there gave a final verdict on February 19 on his extradition. He has 90 cases across Karnataka, mostly in Bengaluru and Mangaluru. He is said to have made threatening calls to several politicians, including D K Suresh, Bengaluru Rural MP.
Highschool romance
Ravi Pujari hails from Malpe near Udupi. He is married to Padma, with whom he fell in love when he was in class nine and she in class seven. They have two daughters studying abroad.
Hire top guns
Ravi Pujari and others in his league are always assisted by a battery of outstanding lawyers, doctors and chartered accountants, police say. Gangsters identify prime property and intervene to resolve long-pending legal and family battles. They then buy the property and make a killing by selling it. Once they settle a dispute, few dare reopen it by approaching the courts. “They pay more than the market rate. They know how the prices will escalate, and how to sell,” says a top policeman.
How remote control dons work
Hire henchmen across locations.
Identify rich, vulnerable targets.
Call up targets with extortion demands.
Send henchmen to threaten targets.
Use fake invoices to collect money.
Send men to assault, murder difficult targets.