Santosh Shetty: Pedder Rd to world of crime

Born into an affluent business family at Peddar Road, poverty and deprivation could hardly have been the reasons why Santosh Shetty joined the world of crime.

Shetty, the son of a garment trader, completed his schooling at Bharda High School, before attending Lala Lajpatrai College. With a dream of starting his own hotel business, he enrolled at Sophia College for a course in hotel management. “He even worked as a trainee with Holiday Inn,” said joint commissioner of police (crime) Himanshu Roy.

Police officials told DNA that his first brush with crime was in 1988, when he got involved in the smuggling of gold and narcotics. He caught the attention of gangster Chhota Rajan in 1993, and soon started working for him.

Shetty, who speaks fluent English, fell in love with a Parsi woman in the late 90s, got married and had a daughter.

He later married another woman of Chinese origin in Indonesia.

Sources say that Shetty, accustomed to a lavish lifestyle, has a weakness for the latest gadgets. He prefers internet telephony like Skype in order to avoid tracking.

Sources reveal that Shetty was obsessed with perfection. After parting ways with his mentor Rajan, he started his own gang which he christened SS Syndicate (Santosh Shetty Syndicate), along the lines of a corporate setup.