Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Feb 8: It is gathered that Ravi Poojary, who was running an underworld racket which used to persecute businessmen with demand for payment of protection money and threaten with dire consequences in case of non-payment from foreign soil, who is currently in the custody of the police of Senegal, had come to that country only four months back and was temporarily staying there.

Information reaching here also claim that but for the fact that the intelligence officials of India executed a well-knit plan and saw that Ravi was held by the police of Senegal on January 21, he would have fled to nearby Ivory Coast within two weeks and go permanently underground there. He had made all preparations for executing this plan, sources say.

It is also said that another Mangaluru-based notorious fugitive associated with underworld activities, Vicky Shetty, knew that Ravi Poojary was planning to escape to Ivory Coast. Therefore, he had planned to eliminate his adversary, Poojary, at Senegal, sources claim.

Ravi Poojary, who has collected crores of rupees through his henchmen in India, had invested the protection money so collected in Burkina Faso, Dakar in Senegal, Gahana in Ivory Coast etc. His major investments were in hotel industry in smaller countries, and in most of these businesses, an Indian-origin man, Anil Agarwal, is his partner. Ravi's wife, Padma, too was his business partner in some firms. The passport she holds is also fake and she is said to be hiding in a West African nation.