The Sheriff Of Wall Street Targeting Alleged Indo-American Criminals

WASHINGTON – A day after NewYork’s southern district US attorney PreetBharara moved ahead with the arrest andprosecution of Indian diplomat DevyaniKhobragade, he was back in business.This time his quarry was Purna ChandraAramalla, a Queens, New York, pharmacistwho was arrested for engaging in a schemeto defraud Medicaid and Medicare throughthe sale of illegally diverted prescriptiondrugs, and related money-laundering charges.“What! He nailed another Indian?” youcould almost hear the community gadfliesgasp, for such is the reputation the IndiabornUS attorney had built in the time hehad headed the prosecution wing of America’shighest profile district — SouthernNew York District, that includes Manhattan.Much of this traces back to his epictake-down of McKinsey’s Rajat Gupta. Butthere have been others of the desi ilk too:From Gupta’s Sri Lankan partner-in-whitecollar crime Raj Rajaratnam to Pakistaniterrorists Khalid Sheikh Mohammed andFaizal Shahzad.But the broad consensus in the USis that he is a single-minded, iconoclasticprosecutor for whom no one, however highand mighty, is sacred — from the billionaireBernie Madoff to the son of the presidentof Suriname. In fact, there are many membersof his investigating and prosecutingteam who are also of desi stock — fromSanjay Wadhwa, who led the Securities andExchanges Commission investigation inthe Raj-Rajat case, to Anjan Sahni, who ledthe terrorism task force. Bharara, who wasborn in Ferozepur, Punjab, and moved tothe US with his parents (his father is a Sikhand his mother is Hindu) when he was onlytwo. He grew up in New Jersey and graduatedfrom Harvard in 1990 and ColumbiaLaw School in 1993 (which are also PresidentObama’s alma mater), before embarkingon a legal and political path where hewas marked as a rising star very early in hiscareer. Incidentally, his father-in-law andhis mother-in-law is from Palestine andis of Jewish origin, making his children acomposite of all the world great religions.Obama appointed him US attorney— one of 93 such attorneys across the USin the summer of 2009, at the instance ofNew York senator Charles Schumer, onwhose Senate staff Bharara worked in theearly 2000s. But the New York southerndistrict is unlike any other geographic entityin the United States. Home to Manhattanand its moneyed millionaires of Wall Street,it has remained Bharara’s focus.“Prosecutor Preet Bharara collars themasters of the meltdown,” A Time coverstory proclaimed some months back underthe title “This Man Is Busting Wall Street.”The accompanying narrative talked of the“man who is bringing mob squad justice toWall Street” while questioning some of hiscontroversial tactics, including wire tappingto gather evidence, and whether it will beadmissible in court.One little known fact: His brother VinnieBharara is the founder-COO of Diapers.com. Consider the number of peoplewho the younger Bharara has caused to wettheir pants, he may well have helped in thebusiness.