Rakesh Saxena (born 13 July 1952, at Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India) is an Indian convicted criminal, financier and trader in the derivatives market. He is accused of embezzlement in the 1990s from his work as treasury adviser to the Bangkok Bank of Commerce (BBC) and is widely reputed to have been engaged in dozens of high risk ventures and deals throughout the world over the previous three decades.[1][2]
In October 2009, he was deported to Thailand after fighting the longest extradition battle in Canadian history, which lasted 13 years.[3][4][5] In June 2012 Saxena was jailed for 10 years by Bangkok South Criminal Court, and ordered to pay US$41million in fines and compensation, after being convicted five counts of securities fraud between 1992 and 1995.[6]
Early years
Rakesh Saxena was born 13 July 1952 in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India. As a child he studied in England, because his mother was an international lawyer.[7] He later lived in New Delhi, India and studied at St Columba's School, and St. Stephen's College.[8] While in university he developed strong Marxist political leanings and by 1974 he graduated with a Master of Arts degree in English.[8]
He worked in a foreign exchange and money market brokerage company, where he concentrated on complex financial transactions and foreign exchange speculation, first in Delhi, Bombay, Sri Lanka and Singapore, and then for the Oriental Bank of Commerce in Delhi, made many fraud deals and put the bank to around 4 crore loss before the Indian government nationalized it.[citation needed]
In the late-1970s, Saxena moved to Hong Kong, where he met his wife, a Thai national.[citation needed] In Hong Kong, he worked as a foreign exchange dealer in Kowloon in the 1980s,[7] and then joined Wocom Commodities.[citation needed] He moved his base to Bangkok in 1985 where the Bank of Thailand had announced the opening up of the forex markets.[citation needed] He then shifted focus to the derivatives arena.[citation needed]
In Bangkok, Saxena dealt in speculation on buying and selling companies and wrote a financial column in the Bangkok Post, spoke in seminars of foreign exchange trading and formed numerous contacts in the business community.[citation needed] Among his interests were mines in Sierra Leone, companies in Australia, Belize, Canada, Cayman Islands, Russia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Israel, Cyprus and the Virgin Islands, and a number of Swiss bank accounts.[citation needed]
Bangkok Bank of Commerce
In 1989, Saxena became advisor to Krirk-kiat Jalichandra, new senior vice-president of Bangkok Bank of Commerce. The bank tried hostile takeovers against many of the large Thai companies that traded publicly on the stock exchange. According to later investigation, it also gave cheap loans to various public officials and politicians in India, Russia, Thailand, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
Bangkok Bank of Commerce collapsed in 1996 and the Bank of Thailand took it over. The collapse contributed to the Asian financial recession, economic and political crisis and the 1997 devaluation of the baht. Saxena was at his residence in Prague or Zurich at the time the story broke, and he never returned to Thailand.
In June 1996, Thai authorities charged Rakesh Saxena, Krikkiat Jalichandre, Rajan Pillai and Adnan Khashoggi and a number of other people with embezzling money estimated to be worth $US2.2billion (or according to other estimates, $US88million). Saxena himself had allegedly siphoned off £300million in 1992–1993 through a string of derivative transactions. Saxena said that he was just an advisor and a trader and that the collapse of the real estate markets was the real trigger of the recession. His relationship with Russian tycoons and Arab sheikhs continues to be a subject of speculation.
Detention in Canada
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested Saxena on 7 July 1996, at Whistler, British Columbia,[9][10] on behest of the Thai police. He was initially imprisoned for 2–3 days in a Canadian pre-trial centre. Saxena resisted extradition, claiming that he would be killed if he would return to Thailand.
In February 1998, Saxena was put on bail of $2.5million because he was regarded as a flight risk. British Columbia Supreme Court overturned this ruling on 24 June 1998. This ruling allowed him to resist extradition in Vancouver, using his own guards in what amounted to a self-financed house arrest, costing him $40,000 per month.[11] On 4 September 1998, Thailand asked authorities in 22 countries to freeze his assets, which, at the time, amounted to $135–300million. Thailand also filed a civil suit against him.
In September 2005, the lower Canadian court ruled that Saxena should be extradited but the government of Canada did not enforce this ruling. Saxena further delayed his extradition with appeals. On 21 October 2005, the Canadian court postponed Saxena's extradition once again until January 2006.
On 3 March 2006, Saxena lost his B.C. Court of Appeal bid to overturn the federal justice minister's order that he be surrendered to Thai authorities, despite his contention that he could be killed or tossed in an inhumane prison cell in Thailand. Saxena's lawyer appealed. One of the possible reasons cited for him being released was the recent coup d’état in Thailand, which ousted the internationally recognized government, thus causing significant turmoil for the crown.
Saxena filed his appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada through the offices of Amandeep Singh, known for representing clients in such internationally intriguing cases as the Extradition of Omid Tahvili, a fugitive who was on the Interpol's Top Ten Most Wanted persons list and part of the defence of the Air India Bombing Trial.[12][13][14][15][16][17]
On 29 October 2009, the Supreme Court of Canada denied Saxena's hearing request regarding a lower-court decision upholding his extradition. The Supreme Court gave no reason for its decision. Later that day, Saxena was turned over to Thai authorities and left Canada for Thailand.[3][18][19]
According to the British Parliament's Report of the Sierra Leone Arms Investigation, Saxena would raise the money so that Sandline could hire soldiers and buy equipment. In return, Kabbah would give Saxena's companies permits for diamond exploration and promises of further business. Saxena would pay Sandline for their operations. However, someone leaked the relevant documents to The Globe and Mail. In an interview the same year Kabbah denied knowledge of any negotiations with Saxena.
According to Spicer, who testified for the Report, Saxena did not give them the funds he had promised; reports have contradicted Spicer on this issue. Sandline bought more weapons from Bulgaria but they were too late – Nigerian-lead troops loyal to Kabbah had already seized the capital. As a result, Saxena did not receive the permits. Later British government investigation confirmed that Kabbah had not told the whole truth. In later interview Saxena claimed that he wanted to help for "ideological reasons" and the last thing on his mind was owning mines in Africa.
General Commerce Bank
Rakesh Saxena was, until recently, allegedly fraudulently active in Britain (West Shore Ventures), South Africa in 2004 (Platinum Asset Management) and then Botswana (Investor Relations), South Africa (Phoenix Capital Partners), as the Sunday Standard and had revealed in August 2005. It is now known whether Saxena owned the African companies or not.
Adnan Khashoggi, Oleg Boiko, Rakesh Saxena, Amador Pastrana, and Regis Possino, a lawyer believed to be the chief architect of the General Commerce Bank transaction, together acquired General Commerce Bank, in Vienna, Austria, from where they allegedly organized international stock and bond deals. Associated with Possino were Sheman Mazur and Raoul Berthamieu, from the U.S. Possino and Khashoggi were credited with raising over $65million for Genesis International, prior to the selling of the shares being halted by the SEC. Neither Possino nor Khashoggi were implicated in any wrongdoing in that regard.
Victims came from many countries, including Australia, Britain, and South Africa. Again Saxena's exact role has never been determined in many of these transactions. His name never showed up in any ownership documents. The Austrian government has not charged him with anything. One reason may well be that, in many instances, it is believed, that parties involved in international deals pay Saxena simply to have him on side. Saxena is not averse to shorting stocks. According to one of India's biggest power brokers, Chandraswami (also Nemi Chand Jain), Saxena is not averse to greenmail-type attacks on deals in progress, and due to his extensive knowledge of the markets (financial, economic and political), his reach is daunting, but his name is not on the paperwork. One senior Indian cabinet minister also alleged that Saxena is making options and futures prices on speculative Indian shares from offshore jurisdictions and that he is the price maker "of last recourse" for speculators in Mumbai.
Reports suggest that Saxena from his residence conducts several questionable and high-profile deals around the world, primarily deals in the exotic world of third world debt and derivatives; many such deals are, until now, outside the regulatory umbrellas and are likely to remain so for many more years.
Mr. Saxena and his company Westshore Ventures were sued by Pacific Energy & Mining Company and Tariq Ahmad of Reno, Nevada in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada for fraud and conspiracy to defraud Pacific Energy of over 1.5million dollars. Pacific Energy had also filed a criminal complaint with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, however, the proceedings were stopped due to the extradition of Mr. Saxena to Thailand.
Since Mr. Saxena's extradition to Thailand, no additional securities frauds are known to have been perpetrated by Mr. Saxena.
Recent developments
In August 2006, the Thai government set up a new team to seize the rest of Saxena's assets overseas, targeting those in Canada. Then Minister Chidchai Wannasathit ordered the Anti-Money Laundering Office and the Royal Thai Police to help the Attorney-General in this task. Canadian Appeals court denied his request for bail. [Bail was granted later].
Rakesh Saxena was also a defendant in number of Civil Lawsuits in United States, including in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada; he won those cases or those cases simply faded away.[citation needed]
Extradition to Thailand
On 31 October 2009, when the Supreme Court of Canada denied the final Appeal of Mr. Saxena, he was immediately handed over to Thai authorities who flew him to Thailand, where Saxena was on trial on fraud charges.[21]
Charges against Saxena
In India, Saxena has been accused of culpable homicide, extortion, uttering death threats and cheating in the death of biscuit tycoon Rajan Pillai.[citation needed] Those allegations were laid after the tycoon's widow accused Saxena and three others of conspiring to kill her husband. Pillai was introduced to Saxena by some prominent Indian power brokers, including Chandraswani. The tycoon's widow, former model Nina Pillai, was considered very close to Saxena by people who saw her often at Saxena's Bangkok residence. Former bank officials in Thailand have claimed that Nina Pillai continued to be financed by Saxena after her husband's death.[citation needed]
The Government of Thailand accuse Saxena embezzling $88million from the Bangkok Bank of Commerce (BBC) and sought his extradition from Canada. The bank had separately filed civil proceedings against Saxena. He has filed a counter-suit.[22][when?]
The collapse of the BBC was one of the first dominoes in a financial crisis that spread across Asia, shaking the world economy in 1997.[10] While some blame Saxena for sparking the inferno – The Wall Street Journal described him as the "Mrs. Leary's cow of the global financial crisis" – he is not facing court action on that score. He is also linked to some of the major hedge fund problems of the late 1990s, particularly problems linked to third world bonds and leveraged currency and interest rate derivatives on such bonds and to problems now associated with Russian and East Europe privatizations of the Yeltsin era.
No charges were laid in the ill-fated Sierra Leone affair. The British Parliament's Report of the Sierra Leone Arms Investigation concluded that the purchase of weapons with Saxena's money only technically broke a United Nations embargo and that Canada was not yet enforcing the embargo.
Related Research Articles
Charles McArthur Ghankay Taylor is a Liberian former politician and convicted war criminal who served as the 22nd president of Liberia from 2 August 1997 until his resignation on 11 August 2003 as a result of the Second Liberian Civil War and growing international pressure.
Thaksin Shinawatra is a Thai businessman and politician. He served in the Thai Police from 1973 to 1987, and was the Prime Minister of Thailand from 2001 to 2006.
Adnan Khashoggi was a Saudi businessman and arms dealer known for his lavish business deals and lifestyle. He was estimated to have had a peak net worth of around US$4 billion in the early 1980s.
Simon Francis Mann is a British mercenary and former officer in the SAS. He trained to be an officer at Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Scots Guards. He later became a member of the SAS. On leaving the military, he co-founded Sandline International with fellow ex-Scots Guards Colonel Tim Spicer in 1996. Sandline operated mostly in Angola and Sierra Leone, but a contract with the government of Papua New Guinea attracted a significant amount of negative publicity in what became known as the Sandline affair.
Timothy Simon Spicer, is a former British Army officer, and former CEO of the private security company Aegis Defence Services. He served in the Falklands War and in Northern Ireland. He founded Sandline International, a private military company which closed in April 2004.
Samuel Hinga Norman was a Sierra Leonean politician from the Mende tribe. He was the founder and leader of the Civil Defence Forces, commonly known as the Kamajors. The Kamajors supported the government of Ahmed Tejan Kabbah against the Revolutionary United Front(RUF), which was led by Foday Sankoh. On 7 March 2003 Hinga Norman was indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He died on 22 February 2007 in Dakar, Senegal while undergoing medical treatment.
The NatWest Three, also known as the Enron Three, are the British businessmen Giles Darby, David Bermingham and Gary Mulgrew. In 2002, they were indicted in Houston, Texas, on seven counts of wire fraud against their former employer, Greenwich NatWest, as part of the Enron scandal.
Jacob "Kobi" Alexander is an Israeli-American businessman. He is the founder and the former CEO of New York-based Comverse Technology. In 2006, he was charged with multiple counts of fraud and related offenses pertaining to irregularities in trading of Comverse stock; he subsequently fled to Namibia, a nation which has no extradition treaty with the US.
Khun Ying Potjaman Damapong, formerly Potjaman Shinawatra, née Soypetpotjaman Damapong is the ex-wife of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Omid Tahvili is an Iranian-Canadian sexual offender and kingpin of an organized crime family in Canada which is connected to various international crime organizations. In April 2008, Forbes.com, after consulting with law enforcement agencies around the world, listed him as one of the world's ten most wanted fugitives.
Vito Roberto Palazzolo is an Italian businessman previously living in South Africa. Born in Terrasini, he moved to South Africa in the mid-1980s. He also goes by the name Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko. He is alleged to be a member of the Sicilian Mafia, an allegation he denies. In March 2009, the highest court in Italy confirmed a 2006 nine-year sentence for association with the Mafia. He is alleged to be a Mafia treasurer linked to Bernardo Provenzano, the Mafia boss arrested in April 2006 in Corleone, Sicily, and his predecessor Salvatore Riina, both serving life sentences in Italian jails. Palazzolo maintains his innocence and claims that he has been persecuted by the Italian government, the press, lawyers, politicians, and "opportunists" for many years. On March 30, 2012 Palazzolo was arrested by Interpol at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand.
Vijay Vittal Mallya is an Indian fugitive former businessman and politician. He is the subject of an extradition effort by the Indian Government to return him from the UK to face charges of financial crimes in India.
Mukhtar Qabyluly Ablyazov is a Kazakh businessman and political activist who served as chairman of Bank Turan Alem, and is a co-founder and a leader of the unregistered political party Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (QDT). He was also the former head of the state-owned Kazakhstan Electricity Grid Operating Company (KEGOC) as well as briefly holding the position of Minister for Energy, Industry, and Trade under Balgimbayev's cabinet before resigning from and joining the opposition against President Nursultan Nazarbayev. In November 2001, he, along with other former Kazakh government officials founded the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (QDT). As result, Ablyazov was imprisoned in March 2002 over accusations of financial fraud and political abuse until being pardoned by Nazarbayev in 2003. After being released from prison, he ceased his formal political activities with the opposition.
Peter Alfred Penfold was a British diplomat who was the second youngest governor of the British Virgin Islands and was High Commissioner to the Republic of Sierra Leone. His career began in 1963, when he joined the Foreign Service as a clerical officer. Two years into his career, he was posted to the British embassy in Bonn, West Germany, and two years after that to Nigeria. From 1970 to 1972, Penfold served as a "floater" in Latin America, filling in as necessary for staff at British missions in the region. He served in Mexico during the 1970 football world cup, and on St Vincent, where he was responsible for organising an evacuation after a volcanic eruption. After Latin America, Penfold briefly served in Canberra, before returning to London to take a post in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). He earned early promotion to second secretary in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he was responsible for reporting on the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the Eritrean War of Independence and was still in the country during the revolution, in which the pro-Western emperor was overthrown. After completing his tour in Ethiopia, Penfold served as information officer in Port of Spain and then as first secretary in the West Africa Department of the FCO.
Adam Joel Anhang Uster was an entrepreneur and real estate developer; he was murdered at the intersection of Calle San Justo and Calle Luna in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico in September 2005. He was leaving the Pink Skirt Nightclub/Dragonfly Club with his estranged wife, Áurea Vázquez-Rijos, from whom he was finalizing a divorce, and was knifed and beaten to death on the street, while she suffered minor injuries during the attack. The event was highlighted as the Pink Skirt Murder in a television exposé on Dateline NBC. Vázquez-Rijos, known in the media as the "Black Widow", fled jurisdiction to Italy in 2006 but was discovered and extradited to Puerto Rico in 2015, and was convicted of being a co-conspirator in her husband's murder in October 2018.
Rajan Pillai was an Indian businessman from Kerala, popularly known as the Biscuit Baron. He was to be sentenced to a possible 14-year imprisonment on 23 counts of breach of trust and one of cheating-by the Singapore courts, but died in custody four days after his arrest, largely because he was denied medical treatment while in custody; the subsequent investigations led to jail reforms.
Mahmoud Reza Khavari is a former Iranian banker, businessman, and fugitive embezzler who was involved in the 2011 Iranian embezzlement scandal. In 2005, he became a Canadian citizen. He is a fugitive wanted by the judicial authorities of Islamic Republic of Iran, and as of October 2016, Khavari was wanted by Interpol.
Nirav Deepak Modi is a Belgian businessman and fugitive who was charged by Interpol and the Government of India for criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating and dishonesty including delivery of property, corruption, money laundering, fraud, embezzlement and breach of contract in August 2018. Modi is being investigated as a part of the $2 billion fraud case of Punjab National Bank (PNB). In March 2018, Modi applied for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan, New York. In June 2018, Modi was reported to be in the UK where he reportedly applied for political asylum. In June 2019, Swiss authorities froze a total of US$6 million present in Nirav Modi's Swiss bank accounts along with the assets.
The Punjab National Bank Fraud Case relates to fraudulent letter of undertaking worth ₹12,000 crore issued by the Punjab National Bank at its Brady House branch in Fort, Mumbai; making Punjab National Bank liable for the amount. The fraud was allegedly organized by jeweller and designer Nirav Modi. Nirav, his wife Ami Modi, brother Nishal Modi and uncle Mehul Choksi, all partners of the firms, M/s Diamond R US, M/s Solar Exports and M/s Stellar Diamonds; along with PNB officials and employees, and directors of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi's firms have all been named in a charge sheet by the CBI. Nirav Modi and his family absconded in early 2018, days before the news of the scam broke in India.
The 2016 Standard Chartered bank robbery was a bank robbery that took place in Singapore on 7 July 2016. Bank robberies are rare in Singapore, with the last successful robbery occurring in 2004. A total of S$30,045 was robbed, and the perpetrator, David James Roach, a Canadian national, fled Singapore on the same day to Bangkok, Thailand. Roach was subsequently jailed in Thailand on money laundering charges, before being deported back to Canada in 2018.
1 2 Drohan, Madelaine (27 April 2001). "The Prisoner of False Creek". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 22 August 2019. London: Saxena lived here as a child with his mother, an international lawyer
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
