By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Supreme Court judge had "to believe many impossible things" in a multi-million luxury goods battle featuring two murders - including that of an ex-Cabinet minister's husband - and likely Customs fraud.

Justice Loren Klein, in an August 5, 2025, verdict said he had "great difficulty in accepting at face value anything said" by the parties fighting over millions of dollars worth of stock left behind by Treasures Bahamas, the jewellery and luxury goods retail chain that was headed by the late Leon Griffin.

Both Mr Griffin, former Bahamas Taxi Cab Union president and husband of ex-Cabinet minister, Melanie Griffin, and his business partner, accountant Biswajit Pati, were slain within months of each other in December and August 2021, respectively, and Justice Klein - noting they "met their demise in suspicious circumstances" - said this further added to the "bizarre" nature of the case.

His latest Treasures Bahamas-related verdict required him to determine the disputed ownership of four loose diamonds that were "caught up in a seize and search" Order granted by the Supreme Court in July 2023. The Order was obtained by Satish Daryanani, principal of Miami-based Sovereign Jewelry, one of the former suppliers to Treasures Bahamas and the late Mr Griffin.

Tribune Business revealed in July 2021 that Mr Daryanani had launched a $34m Supreme Court legal claim against Mr Griffin, Treasures Bahamas and its franchisor in alleging they had failed to pay him a single cent of what they owed on high-end jewellery products and loans provided since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020.

One of the principals for Treasures International, the franchisor sued by Mr Daryanani. And, following the Supreme Court-approved appointment of receivers for Treasures Bahamas, in the wake of Mr Griffin's murder, the Sovereign Jewelry chief named Naftaly Elias as his Bahamian agent in the process to recover unsold goods and inventory supplied to the retailer.

However, Justice Klein, in his latest ruling, revealed he had been left baffled by the "incredulous features" of these proceedings - namely the ever-shifting alliances and allegiances of the parties involved, which resulted in previous adversaries on opposing sides of legal disputes switching sides to become allies and vice versa. These shifts included:

* Mr Keswani, who was among the defendants in Mr Daryanani's initial $34m claim, obtained a Supreme Court Order on April 3, 2024, to switch sides and now act as the latter's Bahamas-based representative via power of attorney.

* Michael Hepburn, who was initially one of the two Treasures Bahamas receiver-managers approved by the Supreme Court, became a defendant "to the claim involving goods" - namely the four diamonds - and "transactions carried out" when he had control over these assets in his capacity as receiver.

* And Mr Elias, who was initially the Bahamas-based agent for Mr Daryanani, is now contesting ownership of the four diamonds against him and may have been involved in managing the Bahamian jewellery stores after October 2021.

Justice Klein also warned that the case "may be a red flag" for Bahamas Customs, and signal they should "pay greater vigilance" to tax avoidance and evasion involving luxury goods imports. He noted the almost $5,000 discrepancy between the $5,617 valuation for just one of the disputed diamonds on the sales invoice and the $770.72 listed on what was presented to the agency - an 86.3 percent difference.

"The background to this claim is highly unusual, perhaps even bizarre," Justice Klein wrote in his verdict. "It is no stretch of the imagination to say that these proceedings required the court to believe many 'impossible things', reminiscent of the remark by the Queen in Lewis Carroll’s classic, 'Through the Looking Glass' — '...sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast'."

He added that the latest ruling stemmed from the $34m claim initiated by Mr Daryanani against Messrs Griffin, Pati and Keswani, plus Treasures Bahamas and its affiliates. The judge noted that both Mr Griffin and Mr Pati were gunned down in separate incidents just four to five months apart during the latter half of 2021.

"The claim was said to arise out of the breach of an agreement between the claimant [Mr Daryanani] and the first defendant [Mr Griffin] for payment in respect of consigned jewellery and goods being retailed through a number of fine goods stores owned or operated by the first defendant," Justice Klein wrote.

Following Mr Griffin's December 2021 death, Treasures Bahamas - including its stores and inventory - were placed into receivership, with Mr Hepburn and Richard Simms approved by the Supreme Court to act as joint-receiver managers on January 24, 2022.

"In this capacity, they later took possession of the goods and inventory in the stores and continued the operation of the businesses," Justice Klein wrote of the duo. "They also oversaw, as joint receiver-managers, the return to the claimant [Mr Daryanani] (through his agent) of the unsold jewellery and the souvenir items held on consignment for sale on behalf of the claimant.

"The agent of the plaintiff, who received the goods, was Naftaly Elias, the second defendant to this claim, who also responsible for the export of the jewellery back to the US to the claimant. A bit needs to be said of Mr Elias’ involvement in these proceedings. It appears that he arrived in The Bahamas in October 2021, at the behest of the claimant, to manage the claimant’s 'business operations' here.

"He was authorised in writing in June 2022 to take control of all of the merchandise belonging to the claimant, or held by him on consignment for sale, with the view of trying to sell them, although the evidence suggests that he held this authority from January 2022. The June 2022 instructions to sell were subsequently countermanded by the claimant, who demanded the return of the merchandise."

Justice Klein, detailing the breakdown of the business relationship between Mr Daryanani and Mr Elias, added: "Mr Elias apparently returned merchandise valued at some $5.403m in July 2022, but there was some back and forth between Mr Elias and the claimant over whether the entirety of the consigned merchandise was returned to the US.

"The claimant asserted, through his legal agent, that the defendants retained some of the souvenirs and merchandise. To the contrary, Mr Elias claimed that the claimant’s valuation of the inventory was inflated and exceeded the valuations in the joint receiver-managers’ reports.

"To further complicate matters, it appears that Mr Elias, along with the first-named defendant [Michael Hepburn], may also have been retailing luxury goods on their own behalf from other stores. In this regard, it appears that Mr Elias also owns a US jewellery retail company, Roniet Creations, which was one of the suppliers of jewellery to the claimant [Mr Daryanani] for resale here," the judge added.

"At some point following the return of the goods in 2022, it appears that there was a falling out between Mr Daryanani and Mr Elias. Mr Elias claims that the claimant owes him some $950,000, which was apparently acknowledged by the claimant, resulting from unpaid consigned jewellery supplied by the second defendant’s company plus what was owing from his unpaid employment contract."

Consignment goods are products supplied to a third-party that is authorised to sell them. The ownership and title in such goods, though, vests in a consignor or supplier such as Mr Daryanani until such time as they are sold by the third-party retailer, in this case Treasures Bahamas, whereupon the two parties divide the proceeds between each other.

Mr Daryanani launched fresh legal action on March 29, 2023, alleging that Mr Elias and Mr Hepburn had taken possession of jewellery and souvenirs/t-shirts belonging to himself, worth $5.404m and $2.327m, respectively. The duo were supposed to "liquidate the merchandise" and forward the sales proceeds, minus reasonably-incurred expenses, to him.

The Sovereign Jewelry chief, via his then-attorney, J. Michael Saunders, obtained a July 5, 2023, search and seizure Order from the Supreme Court to "recover merchandise" allegedly retained by Mr Hepburn and Mr Elias. The Order was executed just one day later against locations allegedly operated by the duo, including Solitaire Jewellery.

Further searches were conducted on August 10, 2023. Mr Hepburn, in a July 21, 2023, affidavit asserted that he was a part-owner of Solitaire, "and it appears that he and Mr Elias were involved in retailing jewellery on their own behalf from those premises".

"The ownership of Solitaire is somewhat obscure, but it appears from affidavit evidence that the shares in the company were beneficially purchased by a company called AMAKK Investments in July 2021, and that Mr Hepburn and Mr Daryanani styled themselves as the 'beneficial owners and operators' of Solitaire," Justice Klein wrote.

" Further, it appears that there was a memorandum of agreement executed between Solitaire and Michael Hepburn and Company with Sovereign (Mr Daryanani’s company) for the retail of jewellery through Sovereign."

He added: "As it turned out, the searches yielded many items of jewellery and thousands of boxes of souvenir goods. The ownership of some of the merchandise was disputed, and those goods to which Mr Elias was able to establish ownership based on clear documentary evidence were returned to him by the claimant’s attorney and independent attorney appointed by the court to supervise the seizure order, following an inventory of the items conducted by the parties.

"Perhaps not surprisingly, a significant amount of the recovered items did belong to the claimant. Several items, whose ownership could not be conclusively determined during the inventories, were marked as disputed and secured in a storage facility under the authority of the independent attorney. Mr Elias now alleges that there are four diamonds among the disputed goods that belong to him, hence the claim for their return."

Justice Klein said the first two receiver-managers for Treasure Bahamas, Mr Hepburn and Mr Simms, resigned in February 2024 to be replaced by Edward Rolle, one of their employees. The receivership was ultimately terminated by Supreme Court Order on October 27, 2024.

"Under a settlement agreement with the estate of the first defendant (Mr Griffin), details of which were not disclosed, the businesses were turned over to Jitendar Keswani, as attorney for Satish Daryanani, who continued to operate the businesses (or some of them)," the judge added. Mr Saunders was released from his power of attorney for Mr Daryanani to be replaced by Mr Keswani.

Justice Klein noted how the latter, "who initially resisted the claim that monies were owing under the retail agreement, did an about-face and asserted in a later affidavit that in fact the first-named defendants were indebted to the claimant for over $33m" under Mr Daryanani's initial action.

Turning to Mr Elias' claim that the four disputed diamonds belong to him, Justice Klein noted the discrepancies between the sales invoices submitted to Treasure Bahamas and its affiliates for their purchase and the valuations supplied to Customs.

"There is a significant disparity in the prices listed in the sales invoices and those presented for Customs. However, based on the earlier litigation and the allegations levelled there, it is safe to assume that the diamonds were probably undervalued for Customs purposes," the judge said.

"For example, the 1.51 carat diamond, valued at $5,617 in the sales invoice, was listed for $770.72 in the invoice presented to Customs - a fraction of the real value of the diamond. As alluded to, similar allegations of attempts to defraud Customs surfaced during the earlier proceedings between the parties.

"But this observation does not go to the ownership of the items, although it may be a red flag for the Customs authorities, who may wish to pay greater vigilance with respect to these kinds of imports."

And, detailing other concerns, Justice Klein added: "There was also the assertion, from one of the joint receiver-managers (Mr Simms), that the second defendant [Mr Elias] removed jewellery items valued at $685,272 during January 2022 from the Parklane Marina Village and Parke Lux (stores), which were part of the inventory of the claimant, and which the joint receiver-managers were indicating had to be factored into the goods returned.

"It will be recalled that the Customs invoice for two of the diamonds was from Sovereign to Parklane, so it is possible that goods from Parklane ended up in Solitaire." Justice Klein ruled that, based on the evidence, "it is more likely than not" that the disputed diamonds belong to Mr Daryanani rather than Mr Elias.

Dismissing the latter's claim, he ordered that the diamonds be handed to the former's agent, Mr Keswani.