Mangaluru/ Bengaluru: A day after his body washed up on the banks of the Netravathi river, there is speculation that the financial transactions with Congress strongman and former minister D.K. Shivakumar proved too costly for Café Coffee Day founder V.G. Siddhartha with the controversial and maybe incriminating evidence which came up during the raids, proving too hot for him to handle.
Sources said that during the course of the Income-Tax raids on Shivakumar on August 2, 2017, the residence of N. Chandrashekar Sukapuri, a financial assistant of Mr Shivakumar was also searched. It was then that the financial transactions of Mr Shivakumar’s daughter with CCD and M/s Soul Space came to light, said sources adding that Chandrashekar, who was probed, allegedly revealed that Rs 20 crore was transferred to Mr Shiva-kumar indirectly by CCD. This transaction also led the sleuths to Rajneesh Gopinath, a Singapore citizen, and they found unaccounted cash of Rs 1.2 crore at his residence which allegedly belonged to Siddhartha. Some evidence of cross-border hawala transactions also came to light, said sources.
Rajneesh’s brother Mune-esh was employed as director, finance with CCD and Rajneesh was found alleg-edly involved in various hawala transactions inclu-ding many on behalf of CCD through Deekshith of CCD and a close confidante of Siddhartha. Further proof of money laundering by CCD came to light in the case of a group company Devadarshini Info Techno-logies Pvt. Ltd.
Siddhartha, a shareholder in ‘bogus’ firm
The Devadarshini Info Technologies Pvt. Ltd’s main objective was to manufacture computers and computer peripherals but with no employees on its payrolls, it allegedly indulged in bogus trading of timber and logs with another CCD Group company incorporated in Guyana [Vaitarna Holding Private Inc., a foreign subsidiary of M/s Vaitarna Timber Trading (P) Ltd.] to illegally transfer funds out of India. Further, it had claimed that the logs were damaged on the high seas without providing reasonable proof of its claim, said sources. Importantly, Siddhartha was a substantial shareholder in DITPL.
Tthe investigation into the death of Siddhartha is continuing with police teams contacting those who could provide information — such as his finance officers and advisors — on what drove the business tycoon to the brink and maybe forced him to commit suicide.
On Monday evening, Siddhartha, after arriving at Ullal Bridge at around 6 pm, had gone missing with a massive search resulting in the recovery of his body 36 hours later. Mangaluru police commissioner Sandeep Patil held a meeting on Thursday with the investigating officer to review developments in the case.
A team has been sent to Bengaluru to question those related to the case and look into phone calls and messages for clues. A letter which Siddhartha reportedly wrote to CCD employees three days before he went missing in which he had spoken about his financial woes, is also being probed.
The post-mortem report is likely to be ready by Friday. With Siddhartha's family busy with his last rites, police officials are hoping to speak to them shortly.
