World

NYPD Cop in Hemp Bust Sued Yet Again for Falsely Arresting People; $10M Claim Filed by Brooklyn Brothers

Published

6 years ago

December 19, 2019

Rodney Greenidge, an NYPD cop from the 75th precinct NYPD has been into the news for falsely arresting the owner of CBD company on the charges of trafficking marijuana. Due to this act, he has been sued by the two brothers for false arrest and hiding their paperwork to misled the district attorney. In addition to this, Rodney Greenidge has been accused of putting fake charges of marijuana trafficking against the owner, Roney Levey. It is not for the first time he has been into the news for such an act. Back in 2014, Rodney Greenidge had been involved in a similar case for which a lawsuit was filed against him.

Highlighting the rising corruption in the NYPD, Ronen Levy stated that he was falsely arrested by the officer Rodney Greenidge for the 75th precinct NYPD on 2nd November. In addition to this, he and his brother Oren Levey mentioned that the NYPD officer also hid their paperwork from the district attorney sent to him at that time. According to them, the officer registered an FIR on their 106lb of legal hemp and imposed charges of knowingly as well as willingly trafficking marijuana. However, the owner was not found guilty and all the charges against him were dismissed.

This is not the first case of a false arrest by Rodney Greenidge as he had a history of falsely arresting people by putting fake charges against them. And he had been sued in the past numerous times for falsely arresting people and tampering with evidence. For the other lawsuit against him in 2014, the city had to pay $15k. He has been serving in NYPD for 18 years and had been involved in numerous other false cases against people.

Hemp was legalized in the US with the passing of the 2018 Farm Bill and a number of the US states have also legalized Marijuana. Due to the increasing cases of marijuana, more news regarding police arrests has been surfacing from different parts of the US as police have been criminalizing its use by making senseless arrests. The recent case of confiscation of 106 pounds of legal industrial hemp enriched with CBD by the New York City police officers is one such example. After the confiscation, the NYPD police officer, Rodney Greenidge also posted photos about it on the official Twitter account of NYPD.

After seeing the post of NYPD on its Twitter handle, people reacted ferociously to this act of the officer, Rodney Greenidge and raised questions over the NYPD’s crackdown on cannabis, especially now that it is legal in a number of the US states. The owner of the company was released the following day with no bail and he expressed his displeasure by exposing the illicit act of the NYPD on the social media platform, Instagram.

The US government has removed CBD from the list of illegal drugs as long as it doesn’t have over 0.3 percent of THC. Due to this, more people are buying CBD products online for getting many health benefits. However, the New York penal law has not declared it legal to use and the state has been conducting a pilot program for the sale and distribution of hemp. Only through permission from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. According to the released statement from NYPD, both the seller and the buyer didn’t have the required permissions for involving in the sale as well as the distribution of marijuana and they violated New York State law. But according the mail we received from the department of Agriculture, it was stated that you don’t need licenses to buy or sell CBD.

But no such charges have been proved against Roney Levey and he came out of the jail the following day of his arrest. And in order to prove his innocence, he along with his brother, Oren Levey has accused the NYPD officer, Rodney Greenidge for arresting him on false grounds. According to them, this incident ruined their reputations and threated their livelihood of selling CBD, the extract of hemp plants without an intoxicating effect on users. The Brookly brothers have also filed a $10M claim for their defamation and the expense they had to bear in terms of legal fees as well as the loss of the plants that cost them $40,000.

World

TRG Chairman Khaishgi and CEO Aslam implicated in $150 million fraud

Published

2 weeks ago

June 23, 2025

Jenny Jackson

In a scathing 52-page decision, the Sindh High Court has found that TRG Pakistan’s management was acting fraudulently and that Bermuda-based Greentree Holdings historic and prospective purchase of TRG shares were illegal, fraudulent and oppressive.

The Sindh High Court has further directed TRGP to immediately hold board elections that have been overdue and illegally withheld by the existing board since January 14, 2025.

In the landmark ruling, the Sindh High Court has blocked the attempted takeover of TRG Pakistan Limited by Greentree Holdings, declaring that the shares acquired by Greentree, nearly 30% of TRG’s stock, were unlawfully financed using TRG’s funds in violation of Section 86(2) of the Companies Act 2017.

“Having concluded that the affairs of TRGP are being conducted in an unlawful and fraudulent manner and in a manner oppressive to members such as the Petitioner (Zia Chishti), the case falls for corrective orders under sub-section (2) of section 286 of the Companies Act,” Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry concluded.

The case was brought by TRGP former CEO and founder Pakistani-American technology entrepreneur Zia Chishti against TRG Pakistan, its associate TRG International and TRG International’s wholly-owned shell company Greentree Limited. In addition, the case named AKD Securities for managing Greentree’s illegal tender offer as well as various regulators requiring that they act to perform their regulatory duties.

The case centred around the dispute that shell company Greentree Limited was fraudulently using TRG Pakistan’s own funds to purchase TRG Pakistan’s shares in order to give control to Zia Chishti’s former partners Mohammed Khaishgi, Hasnain Aslam and Pinebridge Investments.

According to the case facts, the Chairman of TRG Pakistan Mohammed Khaishgi and the CEO of TRG Pakistan Hasnain Aslam masterminded the $150 million fraud. They did so together with Hong Kong based fund manager Pinebridge who has two nominees on TRG Pakistan’s board, Mr. John Leone and Mr. Patrick McGinnis.

According to the court papers, Khaishgi, Aslam, Leone, and McGinnis set up a shell company called Greentree which they secretly controlled and from which they started buying up shares of TRG Pakistan. The fraud was that Greentree was using TRG Pakistan’s funds itself. The idea was to give Khaishgi, Aslam, Leone, and McGinnis control over TRG Pakistan even though they owned less than 1% of the company, lawyers of the petitioner told the court.

This was all part of a broader battle for control over TRG Pakistan that is raging between Khaishgi, Aslam, Leone, and McGinnis on one side and TRG Pakistan founder Zia Chishti on the other side. Zia Chishti has been trying to retake control of TRG Pakistan after he was forced to resign in 2021 based on sexual misconduct allegations made by a former employee of his. This year those allegations were shown to be without basis in litigation that Chishti launched in the United Kingdom against The Telegraph newspaper which had printed the allegations. The Telegraph was forced to apologize for 13 separate articles it published about Chishti and paid him damages and legal costs.

After Chishti resigned in 2021, Khaishgi, Aslam, Leone, and McGinnis moved to take total control over TRG Pakistan and its various subsidiaries including TRG International and to block out Chishti. The Sindh High Court’s ruling today has reversed that effort, ruling the scheme fraudulent, illegal, and oppressive.

It now appears that Zia Chishti will take control of TRG Pakistan in short order when elections are called. He and his family are now the largest shareholders with over 30% interest. He is closely followed by companies related to Jahangir Siddiqui & Company which have over a 20% interest. The result appears to be a complete vindication for Zia Chishti and damning for his rivals Aslam, Khaishgi, Leone, and McGinnis who have been ruled to have been conducting a fraud.

TRG Pakistan’s share price declined by over 8% on the news on heavy volume. Market experts say that this was because the tender offer at Rs 75 was gone and that now shares would trade closer to their natural value. Presently the shares are trading at Rs 59 per share.

According to the court ruling, since 2021, shell company Greentree had purchased approximately 30% of TRG shares using $80 million of TRG’s own money, which means that that the directors of TRG Pakistan allowed company assets to be funneled through offshore affiliates TRG International and Greentree for acquiring TRG’s shares – a move deemed both fraudulent and oppressive to minority shareholders. The Sindh High Court also found illegal Greentree’s further attempt to purchase another 35% of TRG shares using another $70 million of TRG’s money in a tender offer.

The ruling is a major victory for the tech entrepreneur Zia Chishti against his former partners and the legal ruling paves the way for him to take control of TRG in a few weeks.