Mumbai: Mumbai baker Anthony Paul, accused of framing Sadak 2 actor Chrisann Pereira and four others in suspected drug trafficking and cheating cases, would introduce himself to his alleged victims as a wealthy man with friends in high places, including politicians, ThePrint has learnt.
Some of Paul’s ‘victims’ and their family members ThePrint spoke to described the 35-year-old as a “smooth talker”, but not very pleasant company because of his “condescending attitude”.
His appearance also belied his claims. “He talked about having a big farm, a bungalow, but (as far as I know) he never went there and had a very basic mobile phone,” recalled an alleged victim.
On 25 April, Paul and his alleged accomplice Rajesh Bobhate, alias Ravi, were arrested by the Mumbai Police. According to investigators, the baker had framed actor Chrisann Pereira in an act of “revenge” as her mother, Premila, had allegedly told him off for trying to hurl a chair at a stray dog last year.
The modus operandi was most bizarre. Paul allegedly got Bobhate to call Pereira posing as a representative of a talent management company, and offering her an audition for a web series in Sharjah. When the actor agreed to travel for the audition, he allegedly gave her a memento in which he had planted opium, and asked her to deliver it to a friend there.
It was after Pereira’s arrest in Sharjah, and a complaint filed by her family in Mumbai, that a probe revealed that Paul had allegedly framed or may have tried to frame four others in a similar manner in the past year.
He has been booked under various IPC sections for charges including cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy, and putting a person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion, as well as some sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. ThePrint has a copy of the FIR.
On Tuesday, a Mumbai court remanded Paul and Bobhate to police custody till 6 May.
Sources in Mumbai Police told ThePrint that Paul would allegedly send Bobhate to lure his victims to travel to the UAE on the pretext of work opportunities, handing them either a trophy containing drugs or a cake laced with drugs to deliver to someone there.
Paul, sources further said, would then tip off the police in UAE about the drugs. Once the victims landed in trouble with the authorities, he would allegedly tell their families he had “contacts” there and seek monetary compensation to help them out, or claim that the release process would require money.
Most of these cases were acts of revenge, sources added.
Pereira was released from prison in Sharjah following the probe on Paul in India, and is awaiting completion of legal formalities before she can return home. However, it has emerged that three more alleged victims of the baker too have returned to India, and one person — Mumbai-based DJ Clayton Rodrigues — is still in a prison in Sharjah, police had earlier told ThePrint.
One of the investigating officers in the case told ThePrint that Paul has no criminal history. “He was driven by the motivation to take revenge on these people. So far, no other motive has come out. Further investigation is on.”
A resident of LIC Colony, a middle-class neighbourhood in Borivali, Paul, police sources said, owns two bakeries in Malad and Borivali respectively. He is said to have completed his higher secondary education from St Andrew’s College, Bandra. In 2006, he went to Melbourne to study hospitality management and stayed there till 2012 before returning to India.
ThePrint reached Paul’s lawyer, advocate Ajay Dube, who said: “Whatever was done was by the second accused (Bobhate). Paul and his family believe that the victim’s side is manipulating [the case] and Paul is definitely not the mastermind.”
Other ‘victims’
According to police sources, Paul’s first alleged victim in the drug trafficking chain was Monisha De’Mello, a fashion designer from Borivali. ThePrint reached De’Mello over phone, but she refused to comment.
Paul and Bobhate are also suspected to have used a similar modus operandi in a probable attempt to trick Rishikesh Pandya, a 34-year-old Mumbai-based businessman.
Pandya’s father-in-law had purportedly joined Paul’s Malad bakery in December last year. “That is how we met Paul,” Pandya told ThePrint, adding that he had invited Paul to his farmhouse in January. “He came to have a meal at our farm twice before Ravi [Bobhate] came into my life in February.”
A devout Catholic, Paul would talk about God and even pray before having his meal, Pandya said.
In February, Bobhate, allegedly introducing himself as Ravi, reached out to Pandya with a ‘business opportunity’ overseas. “He also gave me Rs 10,000 towards the visa processing fee. I discussed the offer with my wife, who spoke to her father about it in the bakery. That’s how Paul came into the picture,” said Pandya.
He further said that since he was finding it difficult to trust the offer, Paul said he would accompany him for his next meeting with Bobhate or ‘Ravi’. Both Paul and Bobhate allegedly pretended they didn’t know each other. Later, Paul allegedly advised Pandya to take ‘Ravi’s’ offer.
“We held meetings twice before I had to leave on 19 March. Everything seemed okay, although I was [still] suspicious about Ravi,” Pandya said.
The businessman claimed he was also given a trophy to be delivered to someone in UAE, but he refused to carry it. Pandya and the police suspect that the item he was given could have also had drugs.
Sources in the police told ThePrint that the authorities in UAE had allegedly been tipped off about Pandya, but since he had nothing on him, he didn’t get into trouble.
Once in UAE, Pandya said he did some meetings through contacts he had in Dubai, but found no information on the opportunities which Bobhate, or Ravi, had promised him.
While Pandya claimed he wasn’t sure why he was possibly targeted by Paul, he alleged that the accused may have sensed that he had money and his family could afford to pay up if he got into trouble in the UAE.
His father-in-law no longer works in Paul’s bakery, he said.
Another of Paul’s alleged victims was 21-year-old Ken Rodrigues, a bodybuilder from Borivali whose father reportedly worked at one of Paul’s bakeries.
According to media reports, after a fallout with Rodrigues’s father, Paul allegedly told Bobhate to approach the bodybuilder as an agent affiliated to a bodybuilding competition in Sharjah.
Rodrigues reportedly flew to Sharjah on 1 March this year and was allegedly handed a trophy to be given to someone there.
According to media reports, he managed to leave the airport without being caught and upon realising that there was no such competition that Bobhate had told him about, he dumped the trophy outside the airport and returned to India.
The DJ in jail
Another of Paul’s alleged victims, DJ Clayton Rodrigues, was allegedly duped in early February this year, according to the police. Rodrigues is still in a Sharjah jail. He was allegedly given a cake laced with drugs to carry abroad by Bobhate.
Clayton’s wife Falyn Rodrigues told ThePrint she was introduced to Paul in 2018 through a colleague who was his girlfriend at the time. “Though we never met on a regular basis, we stayed in touch over the years,” she said.
According to Falyn, Paul didn’t like how his then-girlfriend’s son from a previous marriage would say that Clayton reminded him of his father.
According to Falyn, on 28 January this year, Clayton received a call from a man who introduced himself as ‘Prasad Rao’ and claimed to be calling from a recruiting agency in Dubai. Rao allegedly offered him a job as a DJ and said Clayton would need to give a demonstration to the company management at the Buddha Bar in Dubai.
Clayton allegedly met Rao the next day in Goregaon and they finalised the travel plan for 6 February. At their meeting, Clayton was allegedly given a cake as a token. Police sources told ThePrint that ‘Rao’ has been identified as Bobhate.
“Since it was our daughter’s communion that day [on 6 February]. Clayton asked Rao [Bobhate] to push the [travel] date to the next day,” Falyn said.
The next day, when Clayton had to leave, Bobhate, posing as Rao, allegedly gave him a drug-laced cake to be given to the bosses in Dubai. Unsuspecting, Clayton agreed to take it along, leading to his arrest, she claimed.
Falyn also claimed that though Clayton was told to give a demo at Buddha Bar Dubai, the flight ticket he was given was to Sharjah, from where he was supposed to have traveled to Dubai.
The day after Clayton left, Paul, who had also been present at the couple’s daughter’s communion according to Falyn, allegedly visited her on the pretext of picking up a wallet he had left behind at the communion.
Falyn told ThePrint that it was sometime later that she received a message from an unknown number, telling her that Clayton had been arrested in Sharjah with drugs. “I was hysterical. I told Paul about it [since he was present at the house at the time],” she recalled, adding that Paul then mentioned the name of a senior Maharashtra politician and assured he would ask him to help them out.
Paul then allegedly pretended to make a few calls and told Falyn that the authorities in Sharjah were demanding Rs 80 lakh to release her husband. He had also allegedly demanded money from Pereira’s mother following her arrest in Sharjah.
Falyn told ThePrint that she did not pay the money and instead decided to reach out to the police in Mumbai and the Indian Embassy in UAE.
A few days later, when she saw a social media post on Pereira’s arrest in Sharjah, she contacted the actor’s brother Kevin, who had been lobbying for her release, she added.
It was the social media campaign by Kevin which helped other alleged and suspected victims of Paul and Bobhate identify each other.
Police sources and the alleged victims and their families told ThePrint that the Mumbai Crime Branch then held meetings with them to understand the sequence of events.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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