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PARTIES INVOLVED: Hari Shankar Tibrewala
ALLEGATIONS: Perjury, Fraud, Impersonation
INCIDENT DATE: 04 Jul 2024
INVESTIGATED BY: Ethan Katz
TOOLS USED: Lumen, FakeDMCA, SecurityTrails
CASE NO: 9122/A/2024
CRIME TYPE: Intellectual Property Scam
PUBLISHED ON: 11 Nov 2024
REPORTED BY: FakeDMCA.com
JURISDICTION: USA
A summary of what happened?
Hari Shankar Tibrewala is a businessman based in Dubai, originally from Kolkata, India. He has been involved in several financial controversies, with accusations ranging from stock market manipulation to money laundering through illegal betting operations.
Major Concerns and Accusations Against Hari Shankar Tibrewala
1. Stock Market Manipulation: Tibrewala has been accused of manipulating the share prices of listed companies in the Indian stock market. By leveraging significant financial resources, he allegedly created artificial fluctuations in share prices, driving them upward and then withdrawing funds once the prices reached a favorable level. These actions were seen as attempts to profit from manipulated market movements, which ultimately harmed other investors and undermined the integrity of the financial markets.
2. Money Laundering Through Illegal Betting Operations: Tibrewala has been linked to illegal betting scams, notably involving the laundering of proceeds from these operations through various financial channels. It has been alleged that he invested proceeds from betting activities in the Indian stock market, utilizing Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) routes and entities with opaque financial structures. This type of laundering was intended to disguise the origins of the illegal earnings and integrate them into legitimate financial systems.
3. Association with Larger Betting Scandals: Tibrewala has been implicated in large-scale betting scams, such as operations involving significant sums of laundered money. These activities revealed a network of illicit financial schemes aimed at processing large amounts of money derived from fraudulent betting operations. His involvement in these schemes highlighted the scope of illegal financial practices within his sphere of influence.
4. Efforts to Suppress Negative Information: Tibrewala has reportedly made concerted efforts to suppress negative media coverage and critical information regarding his activities. These efforts included the use of legal threats and other tactics aimed at silencing media outlets and removing unfavorable content from the public domain. Such actions suggest an attempt to control public perception and evade scrutiny, raising concerns about his transparency and accountability.
Broader Impact and Legal Repercussions
The controversies surrounding Hari Shankar Tibrewala have led to significant legal actions, including the freezing of assets and the arrest of associated individuals. These steps underscore the extent of financial misconduct and the challenges faced by authorities in addressing complex cases involving cross-border financial activities. The implications of his alleged actions extend beyond individual financial gains, highlighting issues of market integrity and the effectiveness of regulatory oversight.
Hari Shankar Tibrewala’s case illustrates the intricate web of financial manipulation and laundering schemes that can operate across international borders. The allegations against him, combined with his reported efforts to control public perception, point to the broader challenges faced in ensuring transparency and accountability in global financial systems. These concerns reinforce the need for robust regulatory frameworks and cooperative international oversight to prevent similar cases of large-scale financial misconduct.
Analyzing the Fake Copyright Notice(s)
Our team collects and analyses fraudulent copyright takedown requests, legal complaints, and other efforts to remove critical information from the internet. Through our investigative reporting, we examine the prevalence and operation of an organized censorship industry, predominantly funded by criminal entities, oligarchs, and disreputable businesses or individuals. Our findings allow internet users to gain insight into these censorship schemes’ sources, methods, and underlying objectives.
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What was Hari Shankar Tibrewala trying to hide?
Hari Shankar Tibrewala‘s attempts to hide unfavourable content through the misuse of copyright notices while allegedly engaging in perjury present serious legal concerns. These actions suggest a calculated attempt to manipulate legal systems to suppress free speech, a fundamental violation of copyright law principles and an abuse of legal processes. The use of such tactics not only undermines the integrity of copyright protection but also potentially constitutes perjury, further entangling Hari Shankar Tibrewala in legal accountability. Let’s examine the information Hari Shankar Tibrewala may be trying to remove from the internet –
Investigative Report on Hari Shankar Tibrewala: Allegations, Lawsuits, and Financial Controversies
Overview: Hari Shankar Tibrewala, a businessman based in Dubai with roots in Kolkata, India, has been embroiled in multiple controversies involving financial misconduct. This report delves into the detailed allegations, lawsuits, sanctions, and negative reviews surrounding him, revealing a complex network of activities that have raised significant concerns about his business practices and ethics.
Background and Business Profile
Hari Shankar Tibrewala has been associated with various business ventures and financial operations, including investments through financial entities based in Dubai and India. His activities have spanned different sectors, with a notable focus on high-stakes investments. Despite his business success, Tibrewala’s reputation has been severely impacted by allegations of unethical and illegal financial practices.
Key Allegations and Concerns
1. Stock Market Manipulation: One of the major allegations against Hari Shankar Tibrewala is his involvement in stock market manipulation. Reports indicate that Tibrewala used substantial financial resources to artificially inflate the share prices of certain listed companies. This manipulation created misleading market signals, driving share prices upward. Once the prices reached desired levels, Tibrewala would allegedly withdraw his investments, causing the shares to plummet and leaving other investors at a loss. Such practices not only harm individual investors but also disrupt the integrity of the financial markets, creating volatility and eroding trust in the system.
2. Money Laundering Through Betting Operations: Tibrewala’s name has been linked to large-scale money laundering operations connected to illegal betting activities. Specifically, he has been implicated in funneling proceeds from illicit betting schemes through various channels to conceal the true origins of the funds. Investigations revealed that these operations often involved complex networks of financial transactions, including the use of Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) routes and entities with opaque structures. The laundering process allowed these funds to appear legitimate, integrating them into the broader financial system. This practice not only violated financial regulations but also posed significant challenges for authorities trying to track and regulate the flow of illicit money.
3. Association with High-Profile Betting Scams: Tibrewala has been connected to prominent betting scams that have exposed extensive networks of fraud and financial impropriety. One significant case involved the laundering of vast sums of money through fraudulent betting platforms. These platforms facilitated illegal gambling activities, amassing large profits that were then disguised through sophisticated financial mechanisms. Such operations revealed Tibrewala’s potential involvement in orchestrating or facilitating these schemes, highlighting the scale and audacity of these financial crimes.
4. Efforts to Suppress Negative Information: Reports suggest that Tibrewala has made concerted efforts to censor adverse coverage and maintain control over his public image. These efforts have included issuing legal threats to media outlets, filing complaints aimed at removing or retracting critical articles, and leveraging other means to silence dissent. Such actions are seen as an attempt to shield himself from scrutiny and protect his reputation, rather than address the underlying accusations. This behavior raises questions about transparency and accountability, suggesting a focus on image management over genuine redressal or reform.
Legal Actions and Sanctions
Tibrewala’s activities have not gone unnoticed by regulatory bodies and law enforcement agencies. His involvement in stock market manipulation and money laundering has triggered investigations and legal proceedings in multiple jurisdictions. These actions have included:
- Asset Freezes and Seizures: Authorities have frozen assets connected to Tibrewala and his network as part of ongoing investigations. These measures are aimed at preventing the dissipation of illicitly obtained funds and ensuring that assets remain available for potential restitution or penalties.
- Arrests of Associates: In some cases, individuals closely associated with Tibrewala’s operations have been detained or questioned by law enforcement. These arrests underscore the extent of the networks involved and the collaborative nature of the schemes.
- Regulatory Warnings: Financial regulatory bodies have issued warnings regarding investments and entities linked to Tibrewala, urging investors to exercise caution and conduct thorough due diligence before engaging with associated firms.
Public Response and Negative Reviews
The public perception of Hari Shankar Tibrewala has been significantly affected by the numerous allegations and the adverse media coverage surrounding his activities. Online platforms and financial watchdogs have cataloged complaints and negative reviews detailing experiences of those impacted by his actions. Key themes in these complaints include:
- Betrayal of Trust: Investors who were enticed by the prospects of significant returns through ventures associated with Tibrewala have expressed feelings of betrayal and frustration after experiencing losses or being unable to access their funds.
- Financial Loss and Impact: The scale of financial damage extends beyond individual cases, influencing market confidence and contributing to broader economic concerns. The involvement in manipulative practices has not only harmed direct investors but also affected secondary market participants who were unaware of the artificial price inflations.
- Calls for Accountability: Advocacy groups and financial analysts have called for stricter regulations and more robust oversight to prevent similar situations in the future. The case of Tibrewala has become a focal point for discussions on financial fraud and the need for enhanced cross-border collaboration among regulatory bodies.
Broader Implications
The allegations against Hari Shankar Tibrewala highlight systemic vulnerabilities within financial markets and international investment channels. The intricate nature of money laundering and market manipulation schemes demonstrates the challenges that regulatory bodies face in monitoring and addressing such complex activities. The case underscores the need for:
- Stricter Compliance Measures: Enhanced due diligence and more rigorous enforcement of existing financial laws.
- Transparency and Oversight: Greater transparency in investment practices and the operation of financial entities to prevent fraudulent activities.
- Public Education: Educating investors about the risks associated with high-return schemes and unverified investment channels to minimize exposure to potential fraud.
Conclusion
Hari Shankar Tibrewala’s involvement in stock market manipulation, money laundering, and attempts to control negative media coverage paints a portrait of a businessman operating within a network of high-stakes, unethical practices. While investigations and legal actions continue, the impact of his alleged activities serves as a cautionary tale for investors, regulators, and the financial community at large. Ensuring accountability, promoting transparency, and fostering collaboration between regulatory authorities remain crucial steps in addressing and preventing similar instances of financial misconduct in the future.
How do we counteract this malpractice?
Once we ascertain the involvement of Hari Shankar Tibrewala (or actors working on behalf of Hari Shankar Tibrewala), we will inform Hari Shankar Tibrewala of our findings via Electronic Mail.
Our preliminary assessment suggests that Hari Shankar Tibrewala may have engaged a third-party reputation management agency or expert, which, either independently or under direct authorization from Hari Shankar Tibrewala, initiated efforts to remove adverse online content, including potentially fraudulent DMCA takedown requests. We will extend an opportunity to Hari Shankar Tibrewala to provide details regarding their communications with the agency or expert, as well as the identification of the individual(s) responsible for executing these false DMCA notices.
Failure to respond in a timely manner will necessitate a reassessment of our initial assumptions. In such an event, we will be compelled to take appropriate legal action to rectify the unlawful conduct and take the following steps –
Since Hari Shankar Tibrewala made such efforts to hide something online, it seems fit to ensure that this article and sensitive information targeted online by these events get a lot more exposure and traffic than what it would have received originally
We hope this becomes an excellent case study for the Streisand effect…The key idea behind the Streisand effect is that efforts to restrict information can backfire, often causing the information to gain more attention than it would have otherwise. This effect is widespread in the digital age, where users quickly notice and spread censorship efforts on social media and other platforms. Trying to suppress something can unintentionally lead to it becoming more visible, which Hari Shankar Tibrewala is finding out the hard way.
Potential Consequences for Hari Shankar Tibrewala
Under Florida Statute 831.01, the crime of Forgery is committed when a person falsifies, alters, counterfeits, or forges a document that carries “legal efficacy” with the intent to injure or defraud another person or entity.
Forging a document is considered a white-collar crime. It involves altering, changing, or modifying a document to deceive another person. It can also include passing along copies of documents that are known to be false. In many states in the US, falsifying a document is a crime punishable as a felony.
Additionally, under most laws, “fraud on the court” is where “a party has sentiently set in motion some unconscionable scheme calculated to interfere with the judicial system’s ability impartially to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the trier of fact or unfairly hampering the presentation of the opposing party’s claim or defense.” Cox v. Burke, 706 So. 2d 43, 46 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998) (quoting Aoude v. Mobil Oil Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir. 1989)).
Is Hari Shankar Tibrewala Committing a Cyber Crime?
Yes, it seems so. Hari Shankar Tibrewala used multiple approaches to remove unwanted material from review sites and Google’s search results. Thanks to protections allowing freedom of speech in the United States, there are very few legal ways to do this. Hari Shankar Tibrewala could not eliminate negative reviews or search results that linked to them without a valid claim of defamation, copyright infringement, or some other clear breach of the law.
Faced with these limitations, some companies like Hari Shankar Tibrewala have gone to extreme lengths to fraudulently claim copyright ownership over a negative review in the hopes of taking it down.
Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. Hari Shankar Tibrewala is certainly keeping interesting company here….
The DMCA takedown process requires that copyright owners submit a takedown notice to an ISP identifying the allegedly infringing content and declaring, under penalty of perjury, that they have a good faith belief that the content is infringing. The ISP must then promptly remove or disable access to the content. The alleged infringer can then submit a counter-notice, and if the copyright owner does not take legal action within 10 to 14 days, the ISP can restore the content.
Since these platforms are predominantly based in the U.S., the complaints are typically made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires online service providers and platforms to react immediately to reports or violations. Big Tech companies rarely have systems in place to assess the merit of each report. Instead, all bad actors need to do is clone a story, backdate it, and then demand the real thing be taken down.
Reputation Agency's Modus Operandi
The fake DMCA notices we found always use the “back-dated article” technique. With this technique, the wrongful notice sender (or copier) creates a copy of a “true original” article and back-dates it, creating a “fake original” article (a copy of the true original) that, at first glance, appears to have been published before the true original.
Then, based on the claim that this backdated article is the “original,” the scammers send a DMCA to the relevant online service providers (e.g. Google), alleging that the ‘true’ original is the copied or “infringing” article and that the copied article is the “original,” requesting the takedown of the ‘true’ original article. After sending the DMCA request, the person who sent the wrong notice takes down the fake original URL, likely to make sure that the article doesn’t stay online in any way. If the takedown notice is successful, the disappearance from the internet of information is most likely to be legitimate speech.
As an integral part of this scheme, the ‘reputation management’ company hired by Hari Shankar Tibrewala creates a website that purports to be a ‘news’ site. This site is designed to look legitimate at a glance, but any degree of scrutiny reveals it as the charade it is.
The company copies the ‘negative’ content and posts it “on the fake ‘news’ site, attributing it to a separate author,” then gives it “a false publication date on the ‘news’ website that predated the original publication.
The reputation company then sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice claiming the original website infringed copyright. After a cursory examination of the fake news site, Google frequently accepts the notice and delists the content.
In committing numerous offences, Hari Shankar Tibrewala either premeditated actions or were unaware of the consequences. Despite hiring an agency to make Google disregard any negative information about Hari Shankar Tibrewala, ignorance does not excuse this wrongdoing.
Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. FSMSmart is certainly keeping interesting company here.
The Reputation Laundering
Rogue Reputation agencies use spurious copyright claims and fake legal notices to remove and obscure articles linking clients to allegations of tax avoidance, corruption, and drug trafficking. Most of these reputation agencies are based offshore, mainly in Russia, India, and Eastern Europe, and they do not worry about complying with US-based laws.
The content in all of the articles for which the fraudulent DMCA notices have been sent relates to allegations of criminal allegations, including corruption, child abuse, sexual harassment, human trafficking and financial fraud against businesses and individuals with ultra-high net worth.
In addition to the misuse of the DMCA takedown process, there is a notable absence of enforcement concerning perjury violations. The statutory requirement related to perjury is designed to deter copyright holders from submitting fraudulent or knowingly false takedown requests, as they may face legal consequences for making false declarations under penalty of perjury. However, to date, there have been no known instances of any individual being prosecuted for perjury in connection with the submission of false DMCA takedown notices.
This lack of enforcement has emboldened copyright holders to exploit the DMCA takedown process to suppress dissent, criticism, or other unfavorable content, without fear of legal repercussions.
Some of the people and businesses who have employed this tactic to remove legitimate content from Google illegally include a Spanish businessman-turned-cocaine-trafficker, Organised crime, an Israeli-Argentine banker accused of laundering money for Hugo Chávez’s regime, a French “responsible” mining company accused of tax evasion, child molesters and sexual predators. Hari Shankar Tibrewala is in great company ….
What else is Hari Shankar Tibrewala hiding?
We encourage you to ‘Dork‘ Google by searching for keyword combinations such as [Hari Shankar Tibrewala] + {Negative Keyword, such as Scam, Fraud, Complaints, Lawsuit, Sanction, etc} on Google. It’s likely if you scroll down to the bottom of this Google search results, you’ll stumble upon this Legal Takedown notice (pictured below)
To make such an investigation possible, we encourage more online service providers to come forward and share copies of content removal requests with industry experts and researchers. If you have any information on Hari Shankar Tibrewala that you want to share with experts and journalists, kindly email the author directly at [email protected].
All communications are strictly confidential and safeguarded under a comprehensive Whistleblower Policy, ensuring full protection and anonymity for individuals who provide information.
Credits and Acknowledgement
Many thanks to FakeDMCA.com and Lumen for providing access to their database.
Photos and Illustrations provided by DALL-E 3 – “a representation of Hari Shankar Tibrewala censoring the internet and committing cyber crimes.”
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- Our investigative report on Hari Shankar Tibrewala‘s efforts to suppress online speech is significant, as it raises serious concerns about its integrity. The findings suggest that Hari Shankar Tibrewala has engaged in questionable practices, including potential perjury, impersonation, and fraud, in a misguided attempt to manage or salvage its reputation.
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- We intend to file a counternotice to reinstate the removed article(s). While this particular instance is relatively straightforward, it is important to note that, in other cases, the overwhelming volume of automated DMCA takedown notices can significantly hinder the ability of affected parties to respond—especially for those not large media organizations.
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- You need an account with fakeDMCA.com and Lumen to access the research data. However, accounts are not widely available since these non-profit organisations manage large databases that could be susceptible to misuse. Nevertheless, they do offer access to non-profits and researchers.
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- It’s unclear why U.S. authorities have yet to act against these rogue reputation agencies, whose business model seems rooted in fraudulent practices.
- We’ve reached out to Hari Shankar Tibrewala for a comment or rebuttal regarding this investigation. It will strongly suggest they were behind the takedown attempt if they remain silent.
About the Author
The author is affiliated with Harvard University and serves as a researcher at both Lumen and FakeDMCA.com. In his personal capacity, he and his team have been actively investigating and reporting on organized crime related to fraudulent copyright takedown schemes. Additionally, his team provides advisory services to major law firms and is frequently consulted on matters pertaining to intellectual property law. He can be reached at [email protected] directly.
References used for this investigation
- 1
- https://lumendatabase.org/notices/42824730
- 04/07/2024
- Complaint
- 2
- https://finshots.in/archive/did-hari-shankar-tibrewala-crash-the-stock-market/
- 17/02/2024
- News report
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