Owner of 15 horses, a racecourse regular

He was known to come to the racecourse on his own and sit alone in a corner of the members’enclosure. Trainer Imtiaz Sait described him as a ‘‘gentleman’’.

‘‘None of us know him too well. He kept to himself,’’ Sait said, adding that all he knew if Khan’s business was that he dealt in metals.

According to records at the Royal Western India Turf Club (RWITC), Khan owned a business registered in the name of Great Ventures. He had houses in expensive localities in both the cities — at Koregaon Park in Pune and Peddar Road in Mumbai.

Originally from Hyderabad, Khan is said to have shifted to Pune about 10 years ago when he married Rheema, the sister of Faisal Abbas, a trainer at the Pune turf club. “He was referred to us by the Hyderabad Turf Club and we took him on their approval. If an owner comes with approval from another turf club, he doesn’t need to give details about his business or income,” said Shujjat Hussain, an officer at the RWITC. To most of the racing fraternity, the news of the raid on Khan and the huge sum recovered from him came as a surprise. “One thing is for sure, he didn’t earn all that money from the racecourse,” said a trainer.