A Dubai court has imposed a Dh150 million fine over an international money laundering scam involving Bitcoin.
Kuwaiti-born Indian businessman Balvinder Singh Sahni, widely known as Abu Sabah, was sentenced by the Court of First Instance to five years in prison in May and hit with a Dh500,000 fine. The ruling also specified that deportation would follow his prison term.
Now, Dubai’s Court of Appeal has ruled that the 30 defendants embroiled in the case, of which Sahni is one, must repay the full Dh150 million prosecutors say was money laundered.
Sahni has the right to appeal the ruling, at the Court of Cassation. The National has attempted to contact his lawyer for comment.
Court documents obtained by The National show that a criminal investigation into the 53-year-old’s business practices opened in December last year, uncovering a network of illicit financial activity using Bitcoin between October 2018 to January 2019.
It followed a tip-off delivered to Abu Dhabi’s State Security Agency, which found 30 individuals at the heart of the plot.
Records show the defendants laundered money in co-operation with organised crime groups in the UK.
Funds of about Dh180 million owned by UK-based drug traffickers were transferred anonymously via Bitcoin to five digital wallets owned by Sahni.
These funds were then transferred into cash by other defendants working for Sahni and delivered physically, in dirhams, to a rented apartment at a luxury Dubai hotel.
Sahni then deducted four per cent of the cash as profit and deposited the money in the accounts of three companies he owned.
The authority arrested 20, with a further 10 still at large. In court, all 30 were found guilty, with sentences varying between one to five years.
Additionally, the appeal court ordered a Dh5 million fine against the three companies owned by Sahni: the Raj Sahni Group, Sabah Tower RSG and Reeva Realty FZ-LLC.
The defendants were from India, Pakistan, the UK, the Netherlands, Palestine, Iraq and Jordan.
Sahni’s company’s Dubai property portfolio includes the 24-storey Burj Sabah apartment complex in Jumeirah Village Circle and the Qasr Sabah’s residential buildings in Dubai Sports City.
RSG also owns commercial property in Bay Square, Business Bay and the five-star Sabah Dubai Skyline hotel and residences under construction in Sufouh Gardens.
Sahni, a luxury car collector, often posted photos of his expensive vehicles on social media. He made headlines in 2016 after purchasing the single-digit 5 Dubai licence plate for Dh33 million, about $9 million at the time.
Sahni was a familiar presence on Dubai’s social scene, often seen wearing his distinctive royal blue kandura, baseball cap and matching sneakers.
His Instagram feed is filled with videos flaunting his wealth to his millions of followers, shopping in luxury stores and posing with lions and chimpanzees in private zoos.
