How a baker turned a serial framer

Police say that Paul, a baker by profession, ran up a heavy debt and came up with this convoluted ploy of extracting money from families after setting up his unsuspecting victims as drug mules and getting them arrested at Sharjah airport where he would call and give the authorities a tip off about certain incoming passengers carrying drugs.

MUMBAI: Actress Chrisann Pereira was released from a Sharjah prison late on Wednesday. Her brother Kevin, who has been lobbying for her release after she was allegedly framed in a drugs case, posted a video of a tearful Chrisann facetiming her mother after her release and he said, “Chrisann is SET FREE!!! She will be in India in the next 48 hours.”

How a baker turned a serial framer

However, the case has cast the spotlight on Borivali resident Anthony Paul, now arrested, for not just framing the Sadak 2 actress but also four others as part of an extortion racket.

Police say that Paul, a baker by profession, ran up a heavy debt and came up with this convoluted ploy of extracting money from families after setting up his unsuspecting victims as drug mules and getting them arrested at Sharjah airport where he would call and give the authorities a tip off about certain incoming passengers carrying drugs.

A police officer, who is part of the investigation, said that 34-year-old Paul had travelled to Hyderabad with Pareira’s mother on the day the actress was arrested in Sharjah. Paul had told her mother that he had contacts in Sharjah and offered to help the actress by arranging a lawyer for her in Sharjah. He had initially quoted a sum of ₹1 crore for offering this help which he later brought down to ₹80 lakh. Paul had similarly contacted families of his other victims, boasting of his purported contacts in Sharjah and offering to help the victims for monetary considerations.

As has been previously reported, Chrisann was sent to Sharjah, UAE, for an audition. A little before she boarded the flight, she was given a trophy stuffed with drugs – the same trophy that one of Paul’s other victims, Rishikesh Pandya, had refused to carry. She was told that the trophy was part of the audition prop. But when she landed at Sharjah on April 1, she was promptly arrested by the authorities and later taken to Sharjah central prison.

The crime branch officers also learnt during their investigation that Paul had a grouse with Chrisann’s mother —Premila Pereira—and hence, he hatched a plan to frame her daughter promising her an audition for an international web-series in Sharjah. Before Chrisann he had used the same modus operandi on three other Borivali residents, one of whom was similarly arrested. Clayton Rodrigues, a disc jockey by profession, was trapped in Sharjah carrying a drugs-laced cake, given to him by Paul, and he is still in jail in Sharjah, say cops.

Paul, 35, is a resident of LIC Colony, a middle-class neighbourhood in Borivali and runs bakeries in Malad and Borivali. He finished his schooling at Mira Road, where his interior designer father shifted when Paul was five, and completed his junior college from St Andrew’s college, Bandra. In 2006, Paul went to Melbourne, Australia, to study “management in hospitality” and stayed there until 2012.

Chrisann’s mother too lives in LIC Colony with her children, and about five years ago Paul and she got acquainted, said police inspector Deepak Sawant of crime branch unit 10. As per the FIR, on March 23, Chrisann received a message from a person who claimed to be a certain Ravi—in fact it was Babhote—saying that he ran a firm called ‘Talent Pool’ and aksed her to come for an interview to a suburban five- star hotel for a potential role in an international web series on March 25.

At the so-called interview, she was told that she would need to go to Dubai for a day on April 1 to audition, and that the expenses will be borne by Talent Pool. Accordingly, Chrisann’s ticket was booked for Sharjah on April 1 and she was informed that a vehicle would be available at the airport to take her from Sharjah to Dubai. The return ticket was also booked for April 3. Ravi next met her on the 1st afternoon around 2:30 at a coffee shop in Andheri where Babhote, acting as Ravi, handed her a trophy saying it was part of the audition script.

When Chrisann reached Sharjah, she found out that she had not been booked at the Hilton in Dubai as promised and told her father on the phone that it seemed she had been duped and she also threw the trophy in the dustbin. As per her family’s advice, she picked up the trophy and handed it over to the airport police at Sharjah and complained about being cheated, which was when she was detained and later arrested for drug smuggling, said a crime branch officer.

Pareira’s family subsequently approached Mumbai crime branch and started an investigation at the instruction of Lakhmi Gautam, joint commissioner of police. The FIR was registered on April 24 at Vakola police station based on the statement given by the actor’s mother Premila.

Subsequent police investigation revealed that Paul had similarly framed four others –

His ex-girlfriend’s sister, a dress designer from Borivali. He suspected that she was responsible for their break-up and therefore he sent her to Sharjah on January 15 for a “dress designing event” and once again he gave her drugs-laced cake to carry. Like Chrisann she too learnt upon reaching Sharjah that there was no such event, and she immediately booked her ticket and returned to Mumbai.

Paul’s second victim, Clayton Rodrigues, also a Borivali resident, is a DJ by profession. He was sent to Sharjah on February 6. Paul gave him a cake and also called the Sharjah airport to inform them about the drugs-laced cake. Rodrigues was caught and he is still in Sharjah jail for drug smuggling.

Likewise, Ken Rodrigues was also sent to Sharjah on March 1 with a trophy similar to the one carried by Chrisann but luckily, he got out of the airport without getting caught and threw the trophy outside the airport after noticing that he had been cheated and returned to India. Police said Ken’s father works in Paul’s bakery and had some issues with him and therefore he wanted to punish him.

Rishikesh Pandya, who works in event management, was also sent to Sharjah on March 25th and he too was given a trophy - that eventually Chrisann carried — to take with him to Sharjah but he did not carry the trophy with him and when he found out that he had been duped, he returned to Mumbai. Police said Pandya’s father-in-law works in Paul’s bakery in Malad and had had some dispute with him.

Case Studies:

Clayton Rodrigues, a DJ

Falyn Rodrigues, Clayton Rodrigues’s wife says she knew Paul’s girlfriend through work since 2012 and was introduced to him in 2018. “When they broke up, he called my husband to help patch things up saying he intended to marry her,” says Falyn.

His girlfriend was earlier married to Anthony’s cousin and has a son from the marriage. This son, Falyn said, would often remark that Clayton reminded him of his father, which irked Paul.

On January 28, Clayton received a call from a man named Prasad Rao who said that he was from a recruiting agency. He said that he wanted to offer Clayton a job at their club in Sahara Star for which he would have to give a demo to his bosses at the Buddha Bar in Dubai. Clayton met Rao the next day at the coffee shop of Western Inn to discuss the gig. Rao then asked Clayton to send copies of his passport and Aadhar card to book his ticket.

Clayton was to leave Mumbai on February 6, the day of his nine-year-old daughter’s communion where Paul was present. The man called Rao called up Clayton after the communion, and asked him to meet him at the gate of ITC Hotel at Sahar saying he wanted Clayton to pick up a cake that he wanted to send to his bosses.

Falyn says she received a message from Rao’s number telling her that Clayton had been arrested in Sharjah with drugs. “I was hysterical. Paul told me that he would call Aaditya Thackeray and tell him to help out in the matter,” she recalled.

Paul then pretended to make a few calls and told Falyn that the authorities in Sharjah were demanding ₹80 lakh to release Clayton. “I am alone with our daughter and my bedridden father-in-law and I didn’t know what to do. Only a few days ago, I saw a social media post about Chrisann and connected with her brother. Now, we have hired a lawyer in Sharjah and sent him the required documents,” said Falyn.

Rishikesh Pandya

Event management executive Rishikesh Pandya lives in Worli along with his family and has a farmhouse in Malad (West). His father-in-law works in Paul’s bakery in Malad (West). “Through him, I came in contact with Paul around four months ago. I don’t know why he planned to frame me in the drugs case,” says a befuddled Pandya.

On February 19 he got a call from someone claiming to be Ravi whom he did not know. “He offered to introduce me to some of his international clients who could provide me with events- related business. He asked me to meet him in a hotel in Santacruz to discuss the deal in detail,” he said. During the meeting, Ravi said he was acting as an agent for the client who lives in Dubai.

Finding this fishy, Pandya refused to go ahead with the deal. However, he said, Ravi kept calling him repeatedly. “He also gave me ₹10,000 towards the visa processing fee. I discussed the offer with my wife who spoke about it to her father in the bakery. Their conversation about how I found the offer to meet the client in Sharjah dubious was overheard by Anthony,” he added.

He further said that Anthony interrupted their conversation and offered to accompany me to the next meeting with Ravi to help assess the genuineness of the offer. Pandya said that Anthony came along with him to the next meeting.

“The two of them pretended not to know each other. After the meeting, Anthony started praising Ravi, saying he looked like a genuine person,” said Pandya. This prompted him to take up the offer. He was booked to fly out of Mumbai on March 21st.