India, Feb. 7 -- Tausif Riyaz, arrested in connection with the Torres Jewellery fraud, claims he was neither CEO of Platinum Hern Private Limited, which owned the Torres brand, nor a shareholder in the holding company. Instead, he claims, he is a whistleblower who had shared information about the fraud with the police.

Riyaz stated this in his bail plea filed before a special MPID court on Thursday. He also contended that the wanted accused in the case, most of them Ukranians who were absconding, had shifted the burden of the scam onto the Indians.

After Laxmi Yadav, one of the first employees to be arrested in the case from Thane, sent an email to the police commissioners of Mumbai and Thane revealing the fraud, the main accused starte...