A 59-year-old NRI clerk working in a money exchange company in Dubai has a modest two-story house at a nondescript town in Rampur district of Uttar Pradesh, but "has made it" to the list of the 714 Indians mentioned in the Paradise Papers.
Javed Ali Khan, a resident of 42, Najju Khan Khair in Rampur, a constituency represented by Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, figures in the list at a time when business magnates, politicians and Bollywood celebrities are under the scanner for shareholding interests in foreign companies.
According to the list, Khan had become director and shareholder of a firm, Siam Capital and Investments Ltd, on November 10, 2003. The firm, which has its registered address at Portellius Trustnet Chambers, PO Box 3444, Road Town, Tortola British Virgin Islands (BVI), had investments from 18 companies, including Muchiri Catherine Nyambura and Zetland Corporate Services Ltd, based in the Caribbean Islands.
The leaked documents of the Paradise Papers, however, don't have any mention of Khan's remuneration of benefits during this tenure as shareholder-director of SIAM. Khan quit from Siam board on August 22, 2006.
Khan told TOI over phone from Dubai that his BVI offshore account had been opened on the instruction of the then owner of the money exchange."I have been working in a company, Wall Street Exchange, in Dubai as a clerk since 2000. In that year, the company was owned by a Mumbai-based businessman, Arif Patel.
I had signed the papers to be part of the BVI firm on his instructions. I was told that Siam would give loans to our company. I never operated this account. I am a law-abiding citizen and will never conceal anything from the income tax department," Khan said. When asked whether he knew that he was being made director of Siam when at the signing the papers, Khan refused to comment on the query.
When TOI visited Khan's residence in Rampur, his mother, sister and nephew and cousins were at the house, and they said Khan had last visited them a month ago for a family wedding. "I don't own a property in India. I earn 6500 Dirham a month in Dubai," Khan said, adding that he had gone to the Gulf around 25 years ago.
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