At Noida flat of arrested Chinese man’s Indian business partner, a Chinese passport

NOIDA: In a probe full of unexpected turns, Thursday threw up yet another surprise.
A police team probing affairs of the illegal luxury club run by a Chinese citizen illegally staying in India landed up at a flat in Gulshan Ikebana and found his Indian partner had a Chinese passport.
The rented 3BHK flat in Ikebana (Sector 143) was raided after confirmation that Ravi Natwarlal was staying there, till as recently as June 13 when Xue Fei was arrested.Together, Xue Fei and Natwarlal ran the club – Tianshang Renjiang (Heaven on Earth) – from a three-storey building at Gharbara village in Greater Noida.
The club was an accidental discovery in a probe that had led back to Noida from Sitamarhi in Bihar, where two Chinese nationals were apprehended on June 11 by the Sashastra Seema Bal while trying to enter Nepal. They told interrogators they had lived in Xue Fei’s flat at Jaypee Greens in Greater Noida for 15 days. On June 13, police found Xue Fei and his live-in partner Petekhrinuo, an Indian citizen, at a Gurgaon hotel and arrested them.
Surprise after surprise followed.
Xue Fei, they found, was illegally staying in India since July 2020. Further investigation led to the club, which had a bar, pool, gaming arena and more than 50 rooms for guests to stay. Scanning the club’s ownership papers revealed a set of companies, some of which were found to be fake. And a scrutiny of accounts indicated hawala transactions. From Xue Fei’s car came printouts of Indian IDs, including a passport and a voter ID, that he had purportedly forged, with his photo and an Indian citizen’s name.
And on Thursday, the mystery deepened with the discovery of a Chinese passport from Natwarlal’s apartment. Police said they were still verifying the authenticity of the document. “We also found documents showing he had applied for an Indian passport, besides several cheques, papers related to their firms and other evidence that could help us to unearth this nexus. Our teams are continuously working to arrest him,” DCP (Greater Noida) Meenakshi Katyayan told TOI.
She said Natwarlal’s name had popped up first as Xue Fei's business partner in a mobile spare parts business that was among their purported ventures. “His first location was traced in Noida, after which he went absconding. He is continuously changing locations to avoid arrest. It has also come to light that Natwarlal studied in China. We are inquiring into how he possessed a Chinese passport,” Katyayan said. Natwarlal, sources said, did an MBBS course there.
So far, police have found nine firms linked to the duo, of which four have been found to be fake. Sources said the income tax department was beginning its own investigation too.
The glaring lapse in letting the club run means police have also had to look within. An inquiry has begun to see which personnel were involved in allowing the club to operate under the radar.
“We have started an internal probe. We will take serious action against those found to be involved,” the DCP said. The investigation into visitors at the club has, meanwhile, hit a roadblock. The digital video recorder (DVR) of the club was found to be formatted and police are taking help from tech experts to extract the data.