Iqbal Mirchi's close aide Humayun Merchant arrested, sent to ED custody till October 24

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday arrested Humayun Merchant, a close aid of deceased gangster Iqbal Mirchi in Mumbai. 

He was produced at a Special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) Court, where he was sent to ED custody till 24th October.

The arrest is in connection with controversial monetary transactions between former Union Minister Praful Patel's company Millennium Developer Private Ltd and Iqbal Mirchi's son Asif Memon in Worli land deal. The transaction value is said to be in crores.

According to the police, Mirchi had given Humayun the power of attorney to fix deals on his behalf.

The investigating agency had earlier questioned Praful Patel and confronted him with documents that were unearthed during the probe. The documents showed that Millenium Developers built a 15-story building in Mumbai and gave two floors to Mirchi's family members in 2006-07.

Iqbal Mirchi, an alleged Indian underworld figure, was a close aid of the fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim's. He died of a heart attack in 2013 in London at age 63.