Indian-origin hotelier with Trump link held for stealing at US airport

Washington: An Indian and former partner of US president Donald Trump's family in hotel business has landed in police custody on kleptomania charges at Memphis airport recently.

According to reports from several news agencies, Dinesh Chawla, who is a known Indian-origin hotelier in the US, was arrested for stealing bags from the airport for the "thrill and excitement."

He was previously partnered with President Donald Trump's family on four hotels, said an agency report.

US media reported that the airport security cameras recorded Chawla, CEO of Chawla Hotels, on August 18 taking another passenger's suitcase from a baggage claim carousel at the Memphis International Airport in the US state of Tennessee and putting it in his car before taking a flight.

The police later searched for the bag and found it in Chawla's car. Moreover, another bag was also found in the car which was taken from the airport a month earlier, The New York Times reported.

Chawla, 56, was arrested when he returned to Memphis on Thursday and admitted to stealing the two bags and their contents, valued at 4,000 US dollars.

The US media reported that Chawla had confessed to stealing other luggage "over a long period of time," but it provided no details of other thefts.

Chawla told an officer "that he knows stealing luggage is wrong, but he does it for the thrill and excitement," the NYT quoted the records as saying.

He had given a 5,000 US dollar bond and released later. Chawla will appear before a court on Friday.

The US media is yet to get a response from Chawla.

Chawla and his brother Suresh Chawla operate 17 hotels and motels in Mississippi and are constructing a luxury hotel in Cleveland, an undertaking that until February was a joint venture with the Trump Organisation.

The Trump brothers, Donald Trump Jr and Eric, withdrew from the undertaking in February, saying that "harassment" from Democrats had led them to that decision, but praising the Chawlas.

The relations between the Trumps and the Chawlas began in 1988 when the Indian-origin brothers' father, V K Chawla, reached out to Donald Trump Sr for help starting a motel in Greenwood.

Trump called the elder Chawla and suggested that he apply for a minority Small Business Administration loan, which he did successfully, Mississippi Business Journal reported.

Last year, The NYT profiled Chawla as he and his brother were partners with the Trump Organization on several of their hotels project in the Mississippi Delta until early this year.