NYC condo caught up in bribery scandal
An Upper West Side condo is entangled in an international
money laundering investigation.
Following an Australian court, a U.S. District Court is
blocking any future sale of the 2,207-square-foot unit at The Aldyn at 60
Riverside Boulevard, because the property’s owners are the target of a criminal
investigation stemming from allegations of bribery and money laundering.
Amit Gupta and Sushila Gupta, who property records show
purchased the condo for $3.8 million in 2011 from an LLC linked to Extell
Development, are being investigated for their role in bribing government
officials of the island nation Nauru in exchange for access to its raw
materials.
The current value of the condo is $3.67 million, below its
original purchase price, according to the court order. No charges in connection
with the criminal investigation have been filed.
Extell, which developed The Aldyn, did not return requests
for comment. The Guptas could not be reached.
The condo is the only U.S. property controlled by the Gupta
family, according to the court order. The remaining 18 properties are located
in Australia and Singapore.
Of the 19 properties listed, 17 are believed to be
controlled by Ashok Gupta, who was named alongside Amit Gupta in media reports
for bribing a foreign government official following a 2018 decision by a court
in Singapore.
Ashok and Amit Gupta were reportedly directors of a chemical
extraction company, Getax, at the time of the bribery in 2010, and sought
access to phosphate deposits in Nauru, the world’s smallest republic. Getax’s
logistics arm was found by the Singaporean court to have participated in
bribery, and was fined.
Australian media, too, found prior evidence of payments made
to Nauru officials in exchange for preferential access to the country’s raw
materials. But watchdog organizations have expressed concern about the slow
pace of the Australian government’s investigation.
“There is a perception that perhaps the government doesn’t
want this sort of investigation to come to anything much,” said former
Australian supreme court judge Anthony Whealy, who served as the chairman of
Transparency International Australia in 2016.
Australia’s government has been said to rely on Nauru, which
it pays to run a controversial refugee camp that keeps would-be asylum seekers
from crossing its borders. Critics had questioned whether the Australian
government was dragging out the investigation because of concerns that it would
hurt relations with the island nation. Voters in Nauru removed from office the
government at the center of bribery suspicions in 2016.
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