Shell firms’ office turns into workshop

Tucked deep inside the bustling Abdul Rehman Street, which is located off Marine Lines railway station in south Mumbai, is building number 56. Five flights of stairs up from the ground floor of the old building is room number 206, which lies at the end of a serpentine dark corridor, with its dark-brown wooden doors shut. Kobir, who is clad in a days-old vest and khaki shorts, peeks out of the doorway, letting out a sliver of pale light into the corridor. He seems startled when asked if the room housed the offices of ‘Stelkon’ firms.

“There was a firm of this name here, some say, here. We came here only four or five months ago. And, now we are trapped,” he said. Kobir, who did not reveal his surname, whispered that he was worried about what kind of fate awaits him. Kobir and five others, who occupy the 10ft by 10ft room, are part of a workshop specialising in antique jewellery-making, according to him. Room number 206 is the office address of two suspected shell firms bearing the same address and the same initial, Stelkon had allegedly sent irregular remittances worth Rs 680 crore to a Singapore bank account.

The remittances, which were suspected to have been money-laundering transactions, were sent during August 2015 and February 2016 and were part of a Rs 2,200-crore money-laundering racket being probed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI).

“Our employer supplies the jewellery to an antique jewellery showroom in south Mumbai,” said Kobir, who is in his mid-twenties. He points to a point on the wall adjoining the room’s doors, which is bare but where traces of dried glue form a square-like shape. “This is where that firm’s poster was that they took away,” he said, asking, “How much is the their scam worth, is it in lakhs Will the probe affect us ” The building’s manager was not available for his comments.

According to a DRI source, its investigators had found two un-opened envelopes inside room number 206 that were meant for the ‘Stelkon’ firms. “Those envelopes that stayed behind will give a clue ultimately as to those who ran the two shell firms in the name of Stelkon,” said the source.

As reported by this newspaper on Sunday, the DRI unearthed the Rs 2,200 crore money-laundering scam perpetrated by a clutch of shell firms dealing in consumer goods including electronics. The transactions allegedly used fraudulent documents, including identity particulars of persons who were not involved in the racket, according to the source.