Skip to main content

Indian coffee magnate’s body found by river

Coffee Day Founder, Indian

The body of a billionaire Indian coffee magnate who went missing amid financial troubles was found by a river in southern India, police said Wednesday.

V.G. Siddhartha, founder of the Cafe Coffee Day chain that beat Starbucks at its own game in India, was last seen Monday next to the Nethravathi river near Mangaluru and reported missing soon after by his chauffeur.

Authorities launced a major search operation, and a fisherman found the body on the bank of the river.

“Siddhartha’s body was found early this morning,” Sasikanth Senthil, deputy commissioner of South Karnataka police, told AFP

“We have sent his body for post mortem analysis now and are awaiting results.”

The body will be handed over to the tycoon’s family after legal formalities are completed, said Sandeep Patil, Mangaluru police commissioner.

Patil said an investigation was underway to determine whether Siddhartha took his own life.

Siddhartha — whose family have been in the coffee business for 130 years — opened his first Cafe Coffee Day store in 1996 and went on to become one of the world’s biggest coffee traders.

The chain has more than 1,700 stores, mainly in India, but also in Malaysia, Egypt, Czech Republic and Austria, employing more than 30,000 people.

Police said Siddhartha left Bangalore late Monday, telling his family he was going to a hill resort but instead asked his driver to take him to Mangaluru.

He ordered the driver to stop the car and started walking along a bridge as he talked to someone on his phone before disappearing.

Siddhartha married a daughter of S.M. Krishna, a former foreign minister and chief minister, making him one of the country’s best-connected tycoons.

But his empire came under pressure after tax authorities launched raids on company offices in 2017. Reports said Siddhartha was in talks with Coca-Cola about selling a major stake.

In a letter to the Cafe Coffee Day board, the 57-year-old chairman had admitted mistakes in handling his financial affairs.

But he said he had suffered pressure from lenders and harassment from Indian tax authorities.

“My intention was never to cheat or mislead anybody, I have failed as an entrepreneur,” he said in the letter, which was dated July 27.

The post Indian coffee magnate’s body found by river appeared first on ARYNEWS.



from ARYNEWS https://ift.tt/2Ydp2Tq
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IT ministry forms panel to review social media rules

ISLAMABAD: While uproar against the new rules to regulate social media continues from various segments of society, including parliamentarians, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and civil society, the information technology ministry on Friday formed a committee to review the rules. The federal cabinet approved the rules on Feb 11, but later after opposition from various quarters, including companies that manage different social media platforms, the prime minister announced that a fresh consultation process would be launched over the Citizens Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules 2020. The committee formed by the IT ministry is headed by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority Chairman Amir Azeem Bajwa while its members are Eazaz Aslam Dar, additional secretary of IT; Tania Aidrus, member of the Strategic Reforms Imple­mentation Unit, Prime Minister Office; and Dr Arslan Khalid, focal person on digital media at the PM Office. Federal Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Ma
Post a Comment
Read more

Young girl’s tragic story makes her symbol of Yemen war

Buthaina Mansur al-Rimi’s life has changed drastically since last year — orphaned in Sanaa, the little girl controversially ended up in Saudi Arabia for medical care and has just returned to Yemen’s capital. Her entire immediate family was wiped out in an air strike by a Saudi-led coalition that backs Yemen’s government, using an explosive device Amnesty International says was made in the US. Images of Buthaina’s rescue and a picture of her swollen and bruised at a hospital trying to force open one of her eyes with her fingers were beamed worldwide. That international fame saw her become something of a propaganda pawn in the war between Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels and Saudi media. “I was in my mother’s room with my father, sisters, brother and uncle, the first missile hit, and my father went to get us sugar to get over the shock, but then the second missile hit, and then the third,” she says. “And then the house fell,” adds the little girl, who says she is eight. It was the
Post a Comment
Read more