City businessman alleges threat from underworld

Surat: An offence was registered against Ahmad Vadhariya and others at crime branch of city police on July 21 for making calls to a businessman for Rs1.50 crore ransom. The caller had introduced self as Fahim Machmach from Chhota Shakeel’s gang. Chhota Shakeel is a close aide of gangster Dawood Ibrahim and runs his illegal activities from Dubai, police said.
The offence was registered by a businessman whose identity was not disclosed by police for security reasons. The businessman alleged that for the past few months he had been receiving threats and asked to pay the gang Rs1.50 crore ransom. The caller threatened him of dire consequences if he didn’t pay the money, police said, adding that the former had made similar calls to another businessman too but he preferred not to lodge a complaint in the matter.
Police sources said Machmach had made extortion calls to a few more businessmen in the city, but they are yet to approach cops.
Police instigation revealed that Ahmad Vadhariya, an associate of Machmach, was behind all these calls. Vadhariya had lived in the city for a few months in the past before shifting to Mumbai and from there to Dubai.
“Many businessmen from the city had invested in Vadhariya’s business, but he went to Dubai without returning their money. The investors were pressurizing Vadhariya to return their money,” said a crime branch officer.
Vadhariya took help of Machmach to issue threats to his investors. “The calls were first made to his investors and then to other wealthy businessmen to extort money from them. The victims kept silence until Vadhariya was arrested by Mumbai police upon his arrival in the megapolis. The businessman gathered courage to lodge the complaint on coming to know about his arrest,” police said.
Police will now get custody of Vadhariya and question him for the extortion calls to the city businessman.