Mumbai: On Monday, the anti-extortion cell of Mumbai crime branch, arrested a sixth man in the attempted duping of BJP MLA Rahul Kul. The men had tried, unsuccessfully, to extort ₹100 crore by offering Kul, an MLA from Daund, by offering him a berth in Eknath Shinde’s cabinet in exchange for the money.
The chutzpah of the accused became even more evident to the cops when they found that Vishal Kale, a Pune resident, who was arrested on Monday had, in the past, successfully extorted ₹50 lakh from none other than Chhota Shakeel’s brother-in-law, Salim Sheikh who is better known in police parlance, and for unknown reasons, as Salim Fruit.
Fruit was arrested by the National Investigative Agency last week. The NIA has made a case that he is a close associate of the Dawood gang, and has played an active role in extorting huge amounts of money in the name of Chhota Shakeel through property dealing and dispute settlement. But clearly, he met his match in Kale who was aware of the NIA and the Enforcement Directorate’s investigations into Salim Sheikh aka Fruit’s activities, and called him in May this year posing as an NIA officer.
An anti-extortion cell officer has now revealed that Kale began negotiating with Salim Fruit promising to get the NIA off his back if he paid up. The NIA had registered a suo moto case against Dawood Ibrahim, his brother Anees Ibrahim, Chhota Shakeel and his brother-in-law Salim Fruit for their alleged involvement in arms smuggling, narco-terrorism, money laundering, circulation of fake Indian currency notes and in unauthorized possession or involvement in acquisition of assets for raising terror funds. Kale reportedly began his negotiations with Fruit at ₹3 crore and eventually settled at ₹50 lakhs. The money, the police say, was paid to him in the hope of getting the agencies off his case.
But not only was Salim Fruit arrested by the NIA last week, but Kale himself has been arrested in the Rahul Kul extortion case along with 6 others. They are: Riyaz Allahbax Shaikh from Haatkanagale in Kolhapur district, Yogesh Madhukar Kulkarni, Sagar Vikas Sangavai from Thane, Zafar Ahmed Rashid Usmani from Nagpada and Nandkishor Singh from Delhi.