NEW DELHI; A flamboyant 50-plus Indian woman has shocked Indian and US officials, and the US court system following proof that she violated Indian law by having US and Indian citizenships at the same time and US laws defrauding multiple people of millions of USD.
Madhu Grover may be India’s answer to Anna Delvey, the fraudster currently out of a US prison for defrauding and stealing cash from the rich and famous in New York and other cities. Having also violated immigration law, Delvey is now awaiting her deportation from the US. She rose to infamy because of well researched investigative journalism that resulted in a hugely popular Netflix series “Inventing Anna”.
Madhu Grover has allegedly fleeced big bucks, participated in money laundering, bigamy, ID fraud, forgery, perjury, violation of labour laws, tax evasion, immigration fraud, real estate shenanigans, and brazen misrepresentation. If true, this puts her in a wholly different league.
Let’s focus on Madhu Grover, who has been in possession of both Indian and US passports for over two decades, a serious violation of Indian laws and classified as a criminal offence. Grover’s Indian passport had been renewed two, or more, times since she gained US citizenship in the late 1990s. Why and how did this happen? This violation had been brought to MEA’s attention nearly a decade ago. But no action has been taken.
This is not all.
While US law permits dual nationality, US authorities were made aware of the disconnect in birthdates between the Indian and US passports, highlighting pure immigration and ID fraud in becoming a US citizen. Indeed, we have seen
different birth dates used for things like opening bank accounts, credit cards and employment in the US. And to add insult to injury, even the NY Family Court found her guilty of “fraud and unjust enrichment”. Worse, it has been stated that Grover appears not to have filed taxes in the US for many years claiming she was resident in India whilst, in fact, living in the US and Hong Kong.
THE RÉSUMÉ
Madhu Grover has lived in New York for the past 8 or 9 years with her daughter and her husband, Manish Shah, who has a jewellery business, where her brother, also named Manish, has worked for years. Various conversations suggest that she uses both those relationships for her own purposes.
But wait, there’s more! Madhu Grover’s resume from roughly the 2010 period seems to be less than accurate. It doesn’t mention Credit Suisse where she claimed she worked when she met one of her “friends”. She claimed she worked at Wasson Capital, run by one Anand Sekaran, but investigations show she used the name merely to make her resume look good. Reports confirm that she and Sekaran were “party animals” and knew each other very well indeed socially. Sekaran fudged his fund’s performance and assets resulting in the SEC finding Wasson to be a Ponzi scheme. As a consequence, Sekaran served time in jail
Documents in the possession of this reporter show that Grover also fudged her educational qualifications. She studied architecture in India and worked for an architecture firm in New York from 1993-1997. She got an MBA in finance from Hofstra in 1999. But she did not get an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business as she stated in her deposition and CV. This reporter has in possession an email sent from the NYU registrar’s office as well as the Hofstra registrar’s office as evidence. It would be highly unusual for her to have received an MBA in India while she was in the US, illustrating possible deception.
Interestingly, Madhu Grover also had a Hong Kong domiciled company, Grover Partner Ltd. This appears to be the apex company through which substantial funds flow seems to have occurred. There are instances where money was transferred to shell companies in the UK and beyond for reasons that are difficult to explain. There are directorships with the name Madhu Grover in as far away a country as New Zealand, which just curiously might be considered an odd coincidence. Or is it? It is worth pointing out that the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) website provides some insight into such dealings. This is the same organisation that brought the renowned Panama Papers scam to light. The Panama Papers revelation was about rerouting illegal cash from one destination to another. In Indian parlance, it is called hawala, the age-old system of sending cash through non-banking and non-official routes. Is Madhu Grover’s name a mere coincidence or is there something more sinister going on?
SELF-STYLED CONNOISSEUR OF ART, ARTEFACTS
So, let’s get under the skin of Madhu Grover, a self-styled connoisseur of art, artefacts, expensive furniture, fancy clothing, world class paintings and Hermes Birkin bags, the single most highly coveted luxury handbags on the planet and in the fashion industry. When she is in the company of her “friends”, she reportedly stays in plush apartments in upscale tony neighbourhoods of New York City.
And it is from there she is said to orchestrate a life of hop-skip-swindle-jump. We have been made aware of another case of her financial misdeeds. It involves a very close friend, who we will call Preeti in order to protect her identity, since the discovery process is still ongoing. Preeti is a professional photographer and writer who met Madhu at the Hong Kong home of celebrated New York based philanthropist Meera Gandhi, CEO of the Giving Back Foundation. They became great friends and Madhu told Preeti that she could help the latter invest her savings, initially through a friend who worked in Morgan Stanley and then by Madhu herself.
In 2021, upon input from Madhu, Preeti transferred her account to Interactive Brokers, a large and well respected online broker. Preeti unadvisedly gave control of her new account by handing over her personal User ID and Password to access the account. This account representing Preeti’s life savings, which was supposed to be conservatively managed, is now plundered. Instead of investing in quality stocks and bonds, Madhu rolled the dice with aggressive win-or-lose options strategies. And she did this without having any of the prerequisite securities industry licences, a clear violation of the law.
“She left me in the dumps after I gave her $345,000 for investing. It was very important cash, my last savings. And then, she simply disappeared, only to surface to say she made some wrong investments. She led me up the garden path,” says Preeti.
Preeti was in NYC for a brief visit and discovered Madhu was being anything but forthcoming about her account. Finally, Madhu refused to meet her and said: “I am sorry, I cannot do anything.” Preeti who has now returned to India on work has initiated legal proceedings against Madhu. And think about this—she was Preeti’s supposed best friend who threw her under the bus for her own selfish purposes!
Preeti recalls Madhu telling her that the best place to meet rich, indulgent men was on long haul flights in First Class. Why? “You know they are rich and you have them to yourself for 10 or more hours”! By the way, this is the way Madhu Grover met at least two of the men she met.
SCANT REGARD FOR THE LAW
Anyway, let’s pick up the crumbs she left behind every time she spun a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. And every time she told her ex-partners—they all fell in love with her—that she did nothing wrong. It all started with greenbacks, as it so often does in such cases that range from small to big, to really big.
Madhu Grover continued to show scant regard for the law. Consider the case of her housekeeper, Carina Canicon, a Filipina who Madhu brought to the US on a work permit from Hong Kong. After unsuccessful efforts to get her back pay, Carina appealed to a New York court for unpaid work dues. It was not a huge amount but not an insignificant one also. The New York State Department of Labour wrote to Carina on July 22, 2022 with a follow up on November 1, 2022, stating that Madhu Grover had refused to pay the funds due to her. The court opined that Madhu was refusing to cooperate in the investigation initiated by the court. This reporter has copies of these court documents.
There are presently many legal cases against Madhu Grover where the courts have found against her.
She would often sit behind her mid-century-inspired desk at home and talk a lot about her global investments. Time after time someone had to foot the bill for Grover’s expenses and her in-your-face lifestyle, a far cry from the gullies of her Jabalpur home in India.
To her “friends”, she said she was an aspiring architect with an eye for detail, she was an experienced banker, she was an investment “destination” and to some she merely said she was living in a top hotel—$400 a night—for more than a month to understand the intricacies of the best food served by restaurants across the world. And they fell for her, her looks. They did not bother to trace her background but were floored by her bikini swimsuit images by the sea.
Certainly, Madhu Grover knew who to date like a carnivore circling its prey, as well as all the cool places to go. Those under her spell wanted more. And they all got cheated. And her modus operandi was not out of the ordinary. She wooed men with her Indian charm and kept on telling the men that she was the new karma in their lives.
And then, as per claims made in the courts by one who got cheated, Madhu Grover slowly, yet steadily, started taking cash from her lovers into her control. And then, realising they have been cheated of their cash, the men went back to their own lives, poorer for the experience and leaving Grover to hers. Not surprisingly, the cases against Madhu started to mount.
Madhu Grover, despite her relatively nondescript persona and figure, worked hard on her networking. She gave an impression to the men that she was some old-fashioned princess who had left her palace in India and travelled across the seas to the modern world of the West.
Slowly, yet steadily, she was becoming a regular feature at the high-end parties in the Manhattan of the 21st century. Her friends claim that she always knew money was the ultimate aphrodisiac, and relationships could be broken like twigs and replaced at any time of her choosing.
Despite her seemingly nomadic living situation, she continued to be a figure on the New York social scene. She was at all the best parties where everyone was your “best friend forever”, and you didn’t know a bloody thing about anyone. “She managed to be in all sorts of right places,” recalled one acquaintance who met her at a party where she walked in with a top Indian troubleshooter. And she wore fancy clothing, expensive jewellery and even claimed she travelled in private jets. No one had the gumption to ask if it was hers!
And in between her high life, there were instances where Madhu Grover did things that seemed odd for a wealthy person. Things like becoming a serial rental apartment “squatter”, a term for someone who refuses to move out of an apartment until paid off. In short, squatting is a form of extortion.
Grover claimed to fall in love each time and continued in her seductions to steal cash without a care in the world. She bounced across the globe, including travelling to India where immigration authorities almost jailed her for travelling on two passports, one Indian and one US.
THE JAMES BUSCHE CASE
In a review of New York court documents, we discovered that James Busche, a US citizen, got fleeced by Madhu Grover. He filed countless cases against the wannabe socialite in US family courts. He even thought he was married to her until cold reality dawned upon him. His deposition is highly instructive and shines a light on the actions of Madhu, as determined by no less an authority than the NY Court system.
This is what Busche wrote in his testimony to the courts.
“My name is James Busche. I currently live in the UK. I met Madhu Grover in 2005, on a flight between Paris and Mumbai. I started stopping through New York on my travels and we dated, long-distance, for about a year. In 2006, I took a job in Hong Kong and we decided to move there together. Madhu was working for Morgan Stanley when we met.
“I knew Madhu was still married to Manish Shah when we were dating, but she told me they had been separated for a while by then. I saw paperwork finalising her divorce shortly after we moved to Hong Kong. She told me that she had finalised all of the paperwork for her divorce and, thus, I assumed that she was divorced.
“After moving to Hong Kong, Madhu said that I should transfer my life savings to a fund called Wasson Capital, a fund that she knew of. It was run by a friend of hers. Additionally, she suggested that I set up a deferred compensation system, transferring much of my earnings into this fund. I complied and relinquished total control of all assets to her. During 2007 or 2008 she said that she wanted to set up an account or accounts with Morgan Stanley and move the money away from Wasson. Subsequently, the owner of Wasson was convicted of fraud and served some time in prison. The money was transferred to accounts with Morgan Stanley setup in Madhu Grover’s and Vijaya Grover’s (Madhu’s mother) names, with total control under Madhu’s direction. Further savings and earnings from myself were deposited into these accounts over the next few years.
“In the fall of 2013, I came home to our apartment in Hong Kong and found another man in our bed. Over the next couple of weeks Madhu admitted that she had had several affairs and did not intend to stop. With this, I suggested that we get a divorce and she responded, “no need as our marriage is not valid…. I’m still married to Manish”. We agreed to separate and she agreed to transfer my money back to me. I moved back to the United States in December of 2013 and she stopped communicating with me in January of 2014.
“After moving to the US, I learned the following:
“All of the accounts were set up utilising Indian passport (even though she is a US citizen), avoiding all US taxation
“She is actually married to Manish Shah and me at the same time.
“She had US government issued IDs showing both 1969 and 1971 as her birth date and showing Shah and Grover as her last name.”
This is not all. Madhu Grover, Busche claimed, committed forgery and brought a Filipina national, Carina Canicon as mentioned earlier, for domestic help all the way from Hong Kong to the US. Madhu also falsified her own records upon immigrating to the US. Furthermore, as of 2013, Madhu had not filed any US tax returns for over a decade despite having worked in Hong Kong. And some or all of her US accounts and IDs were obtained using fraudulent or forged information.
Busche filed for divorce in July of 2014 in NY court. It took more than a year to get the right to proceed in NY courts as Madhu claimed she had no ties to New York. Finally, Judge Ellen Gesmer ruled that the case could proceed in New York. Court documentation stated Madhu Grover and Manish Shah both committed perjury and that Madhu Grover was a bigamist.
In rendering a decision on February 22, 2016, the Hon. Ellen Gesmer, who is now a Justice of the Appellate Division, First Department, said: “It is very clear, [Grover] said on the witness stand, at least three times, if not five, that she had never been married to Mr. Shah; that she was never married to anybody except Mr. Busche and that was just false.”
“Ms. Grover was wholly incredible. She swore repeatedly in her testimony that she had never been previously married to anyone but Mr. Busche, but a valid marriage certificate, Plaintiff’s exhibit 14, shows that she was married in 1993 to Mr. Shah.”
“If that were not enough, she even lied on the witness stand about where she was staying while she was in New York, saying first that she was staying at a hotel and then saying that she was staying at the home of a friend.”
“She also testified that she was born in 1971, but documents in evidence include her India passport, which shows that she represented her birth certificate then as 1969.”
“During some of the years she worked, she filed tax returns, but she didn’t seem to know when or where or with whom she filed tax returns.
“And I make that finding based on her clear dishonesty with this Court, in view of her repeated outright lies to this Court about her marital status with Mr. Shah.”
Busche’s further court filings stated, “I have spent thousands of dollars travelling to Manhattan to attend court and on legal fees. All times that Madhu chose to not attend required court days, my council asked the court to sanction Madhu for not showing up or to simply proceed without her. This was never done. None in the New York court system (or Indian passport control) have enforced the laws. I am left to continue to spend thousands more with no assurance that the court will enforce justice and help me get back what was taken.”
“My life was turned upside down. I was duped by the person I loved, the person that I intended to spend the remainder of my life with. My family was taken from me. Everything I had in the world was taken from me. I do not have the money to continue fighting this case. I have no idea what to do next?”
In conclusion, he says fraud was allegedly committed at multiple points of commercial and bureaucratic interaction by Madhu Grover. Is any more evidence required?
The noose is tightening. Madhu Grover may run but never will be able to hide. That much is abundantly clear.