:''See also

List of people who have lived in airports This is a list of people notable for living for periods of more than a week in airports. The reasons are usually protesting, asylum seeking or having holiday difficulties, having difficulty with visas and passports. List of residents See al ...

'' use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = , death_cause = , body_discovered = , resting_place = , resting_place_coordinates = , burial_place = , burial_coordinates = , monuments = , nationality = , other_names = , siglum = , citizenship = British , education = , alma_mater = , occupation = Trader , years_active = , era = , employer = , organization = , agent = , known_for = , notable_works = , style = , net_worth = , height = , television = , title = , term = , predecessor = , successor = , party = , movement = , opponents = , boards = , criminal_charges = , criminal_penalty = , criminal_status = , spouse = , partner = , children = , parents = , mother = , father = , relatives = , family = , callsign = , awards = , website = , module = , module2 = , module3 = , module4 = , module5 = , module6 = , signature = , signature_size = , signature_alt = , footnotes = Sanjay Shah is a

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics ...

-based British-Indian businessman and suspected tax

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compen ...

ster. He founded Solo Capital, a hedge fund firm which closed in 2016, and the NGO

Autism Rocks Autism Rocks was a United Kingdom-based charitable organisation founded by Sanjay Shah to raise awareness about autism through charitable music events. All funds raised by Autism Rocks went to the Autism Research Trust, which in turn supported re ...

, which closed in 2020. Shah is a prime suspect in a case regarding the

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

Government being allegedly defrauded of 12.7 billion DKK for (1.65 billion euros) between 2012 and 2015, part of the CumEx-Files involving multiple European nations and involves a number of the world's largest banks such as

Barclays Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services. Barclays traces ...

Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment banki ...

JP Morgan JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the w ...

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the f ...

BNP Paribas BNP Paribas is a French international banking group, founded in 2000 from the merger between Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP, "National Bank of Paris") and Paribas, formerly known as the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas. The full name of the gro ...

Banco Santander Banco Santander, S.A., doing business as Santander Group (, , Spanish: ), is a Spanish multinational financial services company based in Madrid and Santander in Spain. Additionally, Santander maintains a presence in all global financial centr ...

Macquarie Bank Macquarie Group Limited () is an Australian global financial services group. Headquartered and listed in Australia (), Macquarie employs more than 17,000 staff in 33 markets, is the world's largest infrastructure asset manager and Australia's ...

and

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

. Shah has admitted his company enabled clients to claim around DKK 8 billion from the Ministry of Taxation. He claimed that he was only using legal

tax loopholes Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime in a single territory to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. A tax shelter is one type of tax avoidance, and tax havens are jurisdict ...

, where

dividend A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-inv ...

income is taxed differently in various jurisdictions.

Career

Shah worked as a banker for

Credit Suisse Credit Suisse Group AG is a global Investment banking, investment bank and financial services firm founded and based in Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, it maintains offices in all Financial centre, major financial centers around the w ...

and

Rabobank Rabobank (; full name: ''Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A.'') is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands. The group comprises 89 local Dutch Rabobanks (2019), a central organisation (Raboban ...

"over a period of almost 20 years and – after finding himself unemployed in 2008 – set up his own investment management, brokerage and principal trading business". He founded the

hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as ...

firm Solo Capital in London, which employed "more than 100 financial experts across offices in London and Dubai". Shah was investigated in regards to tax fraud and Solo Capital closed in 2016, amid the investigation by Danish authorities, while his London home and offices were raided by the British

National Crime Agency The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a national law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom. It is the UK's lead agency against organised crime; human, weapon and drug trafficking; cybercrime; and economic crime that goes across regional and in ...

, and Varengold Bank (co-owned by Shah) was raided by German authorities.

Danish dividend tax fraud charges

In 2010, in an audit report, the Danish Ministry of Taxation was found to have ignored warnings on multiple occasions of a legal tax loophole concerning

dividend tax A dividend tax is a tax imposed by a jurisdiction on dividends paid by a corporation to its shareholders (stockholders). The primary tax liability is that of the shareholder, though a tax obligation may also be imposed on the corporation in the f ...

. This was two years before Sanjay Shah's company Solo Capital enabled clients to be paid more than 8 billions of DKK in tax refunds. In June 2018, Denmark's Ministry of Taxation filed a civil claim in the UK

High Court of Justice The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Senior Courts of England and Wales. Its name is abbreviated as EWHC (Englan ...

, claiming it had been the victim of fraud, conspiracy, dishonesty and unjust enrichment. Since 2015, Shah has been the prime suspect in a case regarding the Danish Government being allegedly defrauded of 12.7 billion DKK (1.65 billion euros) which was exposed in the CumEx-Files. Shah was investigated in regards to the case in 2015. The alleged tax fraud took place between 2012 and 2015 and is the largest in the history of Denmark. Shah is also the prime suspect in similar alleged tax fraud cases involving more than 200 million euros in Belgium and 65,000 euros (580,000 NOK) in Norway respectively. An additional 300 million euros in Belgium and 40 million euros (350 million NOK) in Norway were only stopped, because of warnings from the Danish authorities. In addition, he is being investigated since 2016 by Germany and the UK via

Eurojust Eurojust is an agency of the European Union (EU) dealing with judicial co-operation in criminal matters among agencies of the member states. It is seated in The Hague, Netherlands. Established in 2002, it was created to improve handling of ser ...

, and by the

US Treasury Department The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and t ...

, as it is suspected that some of the money were funneled through US pension funds. As of December 2016, about 300 million euros had been seized by the Danish police in cooperation with foreign police forces. In 2017, two suspected co-conspirators were also charged by the Danish authorities. In September 2018, a High Court of Justice judge in London entered a $1.3 billion

default judgment Default judgment is a binding judgment in favor of either party based on some failure to take action by the other party. Most often, it is a judgment in favor of a plaintiff when the defendant has not responded to a summons or has failed to appear ...

against two UK companies, Solo Capital Limited and Elysium Global (UK) Limited, which were no longer in Shah's control, at the behest of the Danish tax agency SKAT. The claims against these companies were not defended, hence the default judgment. In the same month, finans.dk, a subsidiary of the ''

Jyllands-Posten ''Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten'' (; English: ''The Morning Newspaper "The Jutland Post"''), commonly shortened to ''Jyllands-Posten'' or ''JP'', is a Danish daily broadsheet newspaper. It is based in Aarhus C, Jutland, and with a weekday circu ...

'' newspaper, reported that assets in ''Elysium Global'' and ''Elysium Properties'', two of Shah's companies, had been frozen.Advokater: Svindelmistænkte Sanjay Shah er ved at løbe tør for penge
finans.dk, 5 September 2018. and that Danish authorities have filed cases against him in the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts as well as the

Commercial Court Commercial Court is a type of specialized court on commercial law. List of existing commercial courts * Commercial Court (Belgium) * Commercial Court (England and Wales) * Commercial Court (Victoria) The Commercial Court is a sub-division o ...

in London. In 2018, Britain, Germany and the United Arab Emirates had frozen, but not confiscated $660 million in assets belonging to Shah. In May 2019, a number of American pension funds agreed to return 1.6 billion DKK (239 million

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

) in a related tax-fraud case. In September 2019, German North Channel Bank accepted a fine of 110 million DKK for its involvement in a related tax fraud scheme.Bank erkender bedrageri mod Danmark
DR News, 24 September 2019. Shah remains the main suspect in the main tax fraud case. In September 2019, Danish tax authorities reported that a ruling in Dubai against a 'central player' in the tax fraud case provides access to 9 million documents, of which 3.5 million had already been transferred.Danmark har fået udleveret millioner af dokumenter om svindelmistænkte Sanjay Shah
DR, 16 September 2019 Shah's spokesman, Jack Irvine, has confirmed that these documents came from Shah. As of September 2019, the total number of Danish indictments against persons and companies involved in the tax fraud scheme has risen to 476 with projected legal costs of 2.4 billion Danish kroner. In May 2020, the Tax Minister

Morten Bødskov Morten Bødskov (born 1 May 1970 in Karup) is a Danish Social Democratic politician, and member of the Folketing, currently serving as the Minister for Business since 2022. He previously served as Minister of Defence from February to December 202 ...

announced that the fees paid to lawyers was

350 million, and that 250 new employees had been added to the Tax Office to address massive failures in control. In September 2019, the authorities have so far found no evidence of fraud in the UK, Germany or Denmark. In November 2019, British and Danish authorities reached an agreement that the main prosecution against Shah should take place in a Danish court of law, and both countries support his

extradition Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisd ...

from

to Denmark. Extradition of a suspect from the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at ...

has been described by a Danish expert as 'almost impossible' due to reciprocity as UAE implements death sentence for certain crimes and Denmark can't do this due to human rights concerns. As of 2019, Shah has denied any wrongdoing. In papers lodged in London's High Court as part of a civil case brought by the Danish tax authority SKAT, Shah's lawyers rejected the allegations against him. The Danish Prosecutor interrogated Shah in Abu Dhabi over three days in a voluntary interview in September 2019. On 12 August 2020, the Dubai Court dismissed the Danish government's claim that it had been defrauded by Sanjay Shah of £1.5 billion (Dh7.2 bn), due to lack of evidence. In January 2021, Danish prosecutors charged Shah with fraudulently reclaiming $1.6 billion in dividend tax. Prosecutors are seeking a 12 year sentence due to the severity of case. In April 2021, the United Kingdom

dismissed Denmark's claim against Shah, with judge Andrew Baker stating that the charges were "politically as well as financially motivated"; however, the court did not take action on Shah's frozen assets in Great Britain at that time. On 28 february 2022 the Danish government won the appeal case reversing High Courts previous dismissal of the case, with judge Julian Flaux stating that "judge akerfell into error in accepting" the alleged fraud defendants' submission. On 31 May 2022 Shah was arrested in Dubai to face trial for potential extradition to Denmark. On 12 September 2022 the judge of the case ruled that Shah wouldn't be extradited to Denmark, due to a lack of documents regarding the investigation. The Danish authorities have the ability to appeal the decision. On 15 September 2022, a Dubai civil court reportedly ruled that Sanjay Shah and other suspects in the Danish dividend tax fraud case return around 8 billion DKK ($1.1 billion) to Denmark.

Personal life

Shah is married and has 3 children. In 2009, he moved to Dubai "after falling in love with the city". His youngest son, Nikhil, was diagnosed with

autism The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...

in 2011. After working with therapists and medical experts for 3 years, he decided to raise awareness about autism and in 2014 founded

in 2014.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shah, Sanjay 21st-century English businesspeople People educated at the City of London School English expatriates in the United Arab Emirates English financial businesspeople English people of Indian descent Founders of charities Living people Businesspeople from London Year of birth missing (living people)