Couple's tale keeps unraveling

As more information comes forth about Anil Gupta and Shruti Misra, the more apparent it becomes one cannot put stock in their claims.

The self-proclaimed billionaires, who don't even own their southwest Las Vegas home, stated their combined net worth at $439,500 in 1994. Since then, Gupta has filed for bankruptcy at least once.

It also has been determined the $5.1 million donation Misra made to a local group of blind people was a hoax.

"Anil Gupta is a fraud," said Jim Belmont, president of Southwestern Financial Services, who supplied Gupta and Misra with a $177,664 loan to build a house.

But Gupta never made a payment, and 14 months later Southwestern foreclosed on the property. Belmont and his investors lost $30,000 when Gupta filed for bankruptcy.

"He's a crook," Belmont continued, noting Gupta's arrest on four counts of theft and subsequent conviction of conspiracy to commit theft. "This guy is a pathological liar. You have another O.J. Simpson here. He has told so many lies for so long that he has trouble differentiating fact from fiction."

Although Belmont does not believe Misra is worth the $5 billion Gupta claims, he does point out that if -- somehow, someway -- the duo can prove such wealth, they committed a federal crime by lying on a loan application.

"When you give false information, under the penalty of perjury for purposes of misrepresentation for obtaining a loan, that's criminal fraud," Belmont said. "These cases are smitten with fraud."

Belmont, however, will not go after Gupta or Misra for money lost.

"I would like to believe," Belmont said, "that if (Gupta) is as responsible and sincere a businessman as he says he is, he will step forth and settle with all parties he has not dealt fairly with over the years."

The $5.1 million donation Misra made to Active Blind and Visually Impaired of Nevada supposedly was made through "cash, land and stocks."

But she didn't give any cash, and Gupta has finally admitted the ancient railroad bonds making up the bulk of the alleged donation are worthless.

Now, as it turns out, no land was donated either.

Instead of giving real estate, Misra sold Active Blind and Visually Impaired of Nevada unpatented mining claims to 42 acres of hardscrabble desert in Esmeralda County.

The mining claims -- not the land -- were two of eight owned by Sharma-Nitin Holding Trust, which lists Gupta's wife, Misra, as trustee.

The sales price wasn't high -- just $10 -- but it may have been more than the mining claims are worth.

And unless the members of the nonprofit charitable organization pay annual fees to the Bureau of Land Management, or get a small-miner's exemption and show proof of labor on the site, they'll lose the mining claims anyway.

In short, says a spokesperson at the Esmeralda County Recorder's Office in Goldfield, "They have to work the claims or lose them."

"There's no real estate involved," says the official. "The quit-claim deeds registered for Active Blind on May 22 are virtually worthless."

It isn't known whether Gupta and Misra considered the organization's blind members likely candidates to begin wielding picks and shovels at the remote desert site off Highway 95 near Goldfield.

It also isn't known whether Gupta and Misra were aware that Active Blind's budget comes from the $7 annual fee each of its 50 members is asked to pay -- many don't -- and the personal funds of a few board members. The organization isn't able to hire miners to work the claims.

And even if it could, the results might be disappointing. According to a report allegedly prepared by University of Nevada, Reno, geologist Christopher Rose -- "allegedly" because everything about the donation is suspect -- the gold reserve on the acreage covered by the trust's quit-claim deeds totals only 1,800 ounces.

At the closing price of gold in the United States last week, that equates to a gross value of $582,800. Factor in the cost of setting up an ore-processing facility or shipping the low-grade ore to an existing one, and the likelihood of profiting from the donation is nil.

That's more bad news to Active Blind's executive director, Evelyn Fleet, who was counting on the $5.1 million to build a training facility to help blind Nevadans stay self-sufficient.

"Just to raise the hopes of a 74-year-old blind woman to help her organization ... what a scumbag," Belmont said. "Why pick on somebody so defenseless to raise the wrath of the community?"

Law-enforcement agencies are curious.

"In the past," says an FBI spokesman, "individuals have been known to use instruments like these (worthless bonds and quit-claim deeds) to commit fraud.

"We don't know the intentions of Gupta and Misra. But it certainly looks suspicious."

The FBI isn't investigating the incident because no complaints have been filed.

Gupta and Misra, who have been accessible to reporters in the past, couldn't be reached for comment about this story. It wasn't always that way.

Gupta recently boasted Misra has more than $5 billion in precious metals, land and other assets, though the description of the assets has changed with each passing day.

When the Sun reported there were no Las Vegas warehouses capable of securely storing the $2.4 billion of gold, silver and platinum the couple claimed to own, Gupta "transformed" the metals into rhodium and osmium, whose higher values would require a smaller storage space.

But it was in apparent preparation for Misra's $225 million bid for the Minnesota Vikings football team that the duo made their suspect donation to Active Blind.

To make sure the gesture didn't go unnoticed, they convinced Fleet to pay $568 from her own personal bank account for a newspaper ad lauding Misra's generosity.

"In the past," the FBI spokesman says, "people have used bonds that purport to have some kind of value to give themselves legitimacy and make people more susceptible to their proposals.

"Sometimes they'll use such instruments to lock up property in real estate development deals until they can get legitimate financing. If the deal goes through, they'll get the bonds back, figuring no harm, no foul."

Added Belmont: "When people talk about suing for emotional distress, this is a classic case. The belief that this organization finally had the money to help the blind, (Fleet) put all her hopes and dreams on it. That's just rotten."

There is some good news for Fleet: Las Vegas radio station KKLZ 96.3-FM told her listeners have donated enough to cover the $568 she paid for the newspaper ad boasting of the Misra donation.

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