Fake news nets $1.2 mn compensation for NRI businessman
Vancouver, Aug 24: An Indo-Canadian businessman, who is originally from Bhuj, Gujarat, has been awarded $1.2 million in damages after he was defamed in a series of fake news articles instigated by a prominent American blockchain investor.
It is one of the biggest compensations of its kind in Canada.
Vancouver-based Altaf Nazerali had sued Patrick Byrne, CEO of online retailer Overstock.com, for a campaign of lies aimed to tarnish the reputation of the NRI businessman.
Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected Byrne's appeal against $1.2 million granted to the NRI businessman by the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2016.
The huge compensation for Nazerali comes after a seven-year legal battle to clear his name after a series of articles published in 2011, on an American website DeepCapture.com tried to depict the NRI businessman as a drug trafficker, arms dealer and gangster and a financial supporter of al-Qaida. The articles tried to show that he had links to Russian and Italian mafias.
The articles were written by Mark Mitchell and published on the website - owned and published by Byrne- which reports on criminal financial conspiracies.
In its 2016 judgment in favour of the NRI business, Justice Kenneth Affleck of Vancouver-based British Columbia Supreme Court had said: "Mitchell, Byrne and Deep Capture LLC engaged in a calculated and ruthless campaign to inflict as much damage on Nazerali's reputation as they could achieve.
"It is clear on the evidence that their intention was to conduct a vendetta in which the truth about Nazerali himself was of no consequence."
The American blockchain investor challenged the judgment in the Supreme Court of Canada which last week threw it out.
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Man arrested with Rs 2.54-crore heroin in Mumbai
Mumbai (PTI): Police have arrested a man and seized over 500 grams of heroin worth Rs 2.54 crore in the illicit market from him in Mumbai, officials said on Friday.
The police's Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) made the drug seizure in Santacruz in the western suburbs. The operation was conducted by the Kandivali unit of the ANC on Thursday as part of a special crackdown against drug trafficking in the area, they said.
Acting on specific inputs, an ANC team conducted a raid in Santacruz (East) and intercepted a man. During a search, the team recovered 508 grams of high-grade heroin from his possession, an official said.
The seized contraband, a highly addictive, opioid drug derived from morphine, is estimated to be worth Rs 2.54 crore in the international market, he informed.
Following the seizure, a case was registered against the man under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, and he was formally placed under arrest in the early hours of Friday.
The police are currently investigating the source of the drug and trying to identify the intended recipients of the consignment, he said.
