A joint team of the Delhi Police, the Income Tax department, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Excise and the Wildlife Department raided Sharma's C-30, Mayfair Garden residence last night. The police have recovered documents of property estimated to be worth about Rs 500 crore and a helicopter from the Chattarpur farmhouse. Sharma has been remanded to custody for three days.

The team has recovered documents indicating that he is a frontman of the Dubai-based underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Said the joint commissioner of police (southern range), ``Sharma did sundry jobs at Sadar bazaar 20 years ago. Though we have recovered enormous assets from his house, he still has no known source of income. We suspect that Sharma might have made this kind of money from his Dubai connections.''

Sharma had contested the 1996 Lok Sabha elections fromPhulpur in Uttar Pradesh. He had floated a new political outfit called the Bharatiya Congress Party just three months ago.

The joint team also raided the houses of some of Sharma's associates and friends. They include Vinod Luthra of Srinivaspuri, Kunjum Buddhiraj of Sarvodaya Enclave house and M K Bhojwani of Mayfair Garden.

From Sharma's house, the police have seized imported cars including a two-seater red Honda convertible, a Pajero, three Mercedes, a BMW, a Toyota, a Chevrolet and a Lancer costing about Rs 4 crore totally.

The team also confiscated Sharma's property including a 1.5-acre plot at Mumbai's Juhu Beach, 200 acres of farmland at Faridabad and his Jai Mata Di farmhouse at Chhattarpur. The raiding team had recovered documents and keys of 11 properties in the Capital and five in Mumbai.

The police say that most of these properties had been forcefully occupied and their ownership papers signed under duress. In fact, Sharma's modus operandi of acquiring property was to hire it (in case ofcars) or occupy it temporarily (in case of houses or land) and never return it to the owner thereafter. If the property owner created a ruckus, he was threatened with death.

The joint team raided Sharma's houses after an anonymous caller informed the police control room that the he had detained Mumbai-based aviation company owner Suresh Rao in his Connaught Place office. Rao was later rescued. Suresh had apparently visited Sharma's house last evening to get back his helicopter. Sharma refused and his men allegedly beat Suresh. Sharma, it is alleged, then took Suresh to his Connaught Place office to get him to sign some documents.

M K Subba, MP, has also lodged a complaint that Romesh Sharma had fraudulently taken over his Chhattarpur farmhouse.