This is the notorious gangster who was the last person to see an oligarch-obsessed teenager alive before he jumped to his death from the suspected drug dealer’s luxury flat overlooking the River Thames.
Zac Brettler, 19, plunged to his death in November 2019 after jumping from a 5th floor apartment owned by Verinder Sharma, known in the criminal underworld as ‘Indian Dave’.
It would take four days for police to visit the flat which Sharma, who was suspected of being involved in the death of a gangland enforcer in 2003 and even fled to Europe to evade arrest, called home.
In that time the 55-year-old did not call 999 in concern for Zac, and when officers spoke to him he insisted he had gone to bed, despite being caught on CCTV from MI6’s headquarters over the river moving around inside his flat as the teen leapt from his balcony.
While he was arrested on suspicion of murder, Sharma would never reveal what he knew about Zac’s death – he was found dead in the very same flat the next year, leaving the teen’s parents in the dark about their son’s last night.
Verinder Sharma (pictured), known in the criminal underworld as ‘Indian Dave’, owned the flat from which Zac Brettler fell to his death in November 2019
Sharma, along with cryptocurrency trader Akbar Shamji (pictured), was at the flat with Zac on the night of the teen’s death
Zac Brettler (pictured) became caught up with Sharma after being introduced to the gangster by Shamji
His parents, Rochelle and Matthew Brettler, have repeatedly criticised the investigation into his death, insisting their son was not suicidal like the Metropolitan Police suspected, but was trying to escape Sharma.
They have further hit out at Scotland Yard after it was revealed officers did not analyse stains on the walls of Sharma’s flat that looked like blood, while a post-mortem found Zac had injuries that could not be explained by his fall.
In the years that have followed, a picture has built up of the months and days leading up to Zac’s death including how he got caught up with one of London’s most notorious gangsters.
The oligarch-obsessed teen, who was educated at the exclusive £30,000-a-year Mill Hill School in north London, had taken to calling himself Zac Ismailov.
When introducing himself to new friends, he would tell them he had recently inherited his late father’s fortune but he was being blocked from accessing it by his mother, who lived in Dubai.
It was through this that he was introduced to Akbar Shamji, a 52-year-old cryptocurrency trader who has since moved to the United States.
Shamji, the son of a former Tory donor who was jailed for perjury in the 1980s, met with Zac and upon hearing about his supposed inheritance agreed to be business partners.
He then put Zac in touch with Sharma, who lived alone in an apartment at the Riverwalk development – a luxury set of flats next to Vauxhall Bridge in London – in the hope he could give the teenager a home while he resolved his ‘inheritance dispute.
It would have been out of character for Sharma to do out of the kindness of his heart – for decades he had been well known to police forces in Britain and the criminal underworld.
With a reputation for extreme violence despite his short stature, he was implicated in the murder of David King, a gangster who was mowed down in a volley of bullets in October 2003.
The two men who were convicted of his murder had been arrested alongside King and Sharma after their attempts to import 13kg of heroin the year before were intercepted by customs agents, the Times reports.
While the charges were dropped for all men, some were of the opinion they were dropped a little too quickly for King, with Sharma branding him a grass.
A year later, after putting a contract on Sharma’s life, bodybuilder-turned-gangster King, was mowed down in a rain of bullets. Moments after the shooting, the two men called a phone registered to ‘Indian Dave’.
Sharma would evade a UK and European arrest warrant over the incident, before eventually returning to London under his own name. Despite this, he was never arrested.
Messages in the run up to Zac’s death showed Sharma was getting more and more interested in the teenager’s wealth, writing on the morning of the tragedy: ‘I’m thinking f*** this little kid.’
Zac Brettler, 19, plummeted from a luxury Thames-side apartment development in 2019 and died of ‘drowning and multiple injuries’
A blood-like stain found in a bedroom of the property during a forensic search. Like another stain, it was never tested (Photo obtained by The Sunday Times)
Text messages would later revealed the final hours of Zac’s life before he plummeted to the ground at 2.24am on Friday, November 29, 2019.
The public schoolboy had arrived at the flat around 4pm the day before with Shamji, before spending several hours inside with Sharma.
What happened next is unclear, but at 10.35pm, Shamji messaged a friend saying ‘I have just been heating up knives and clearing up blood’ before warning them ‘s*** is about to go wrong’.
At 1.45am, Shamji left Zac in the flat alone with Sharma. At 2.12am, the gangster phoned Shamji for nine minutes, leading to him turning his car around and going back to Riverwalk. He returned at 2.34am, around 10 minutes after Zac fell.
At just before 3am, CCTV footage showed Shamji going downstairs and peering into the river.
Scotland Yard detectives believed Zac took his own life and reportedly only visited the apartment four days after his death.
But they have been heavily criticised by his grieving parents for missing crucial evidence with questions remaining as to why they decided not to forensically test smears resembling blood on the walls in the bathroom and bedroom.
A ‘couple of metres of glass’ had also being wiped clean on the balcony where Zac is believed to have jumped. But again this area was never tested.
The teenager was eventually found at the base of the tower block with a broken jaw – the cause of which could not be determined – and injuries to his hip, which smashed into the embankment wall.
His parents – Rochelle and Matthew Brettler, both 61 – have always thought their son was trying to escape from what was inside the room and have accused detectives of showing ‘no curiosity’.
They claimed that officers failed to interview a host of key witnesses and mishandled forensic evidence that would have helped establish who contributed to their son’s death.
‘We do not understand why the police, who have a ton of evidence, CCTV, texts, even phone calls, have failed to join the dots and failed to charge Sharma when he was alive,’ Matthew said. ‘It is as baffling to us as it is cruel.’
In an interview with The Times, he added: ‘The omissions are highly suggestive of a degree of incompetence that it’s very hard to get one’s head around. You think, surely they can’t be that bad.
‘My major criticism of the police is that there was no smoking gun and that then required them to do the hard yards in terms of detective work and they never showed a real appetite for it.’
When police did arrest Sharma and Shamji on suspicion of Zac’s murder, they vehemently denied wrongdoing – instead insisting that Zac was a dear friend who had been in the grip of heroin addiction.
They speculated that he must have either committed suicide, or have suffered his fatal accident while attempting to sneak away from the property to purchase drugs.
His grieving parents – Rochelle and Matthew Brettler, both 61 – have always thought their son was trying to escape from what was inside the room and have accused detectives of showing ‘no curiosity’
Zac’s fall was captured on the MI6 building’s CCTV across the river (seen here bottom right). Pictured main in this picture is the building he jumped from
Neither man was ever charged, with Sharma being found dead in his flat in December 2020.
Zac’s parents say they have been informally told the drug kingpin had taken a drug overdose that could have been a suicide. However, an associate told The Times that the criminal had slipped and hit his head in the bath.
Police don’t believe his death is suspicious, although an inquest into his death – first opened in May 2021 – is yet to reach a verdict. The coroner has said they are waiting for further information before setting a date for the next hearing in the case.
Shamji, who denies wrongdoing, claims to have been unaware that his 19-year-old companion, who dressed like a character from the TV series McMafia, was actually living with his parents in a relatively modest flat in London’s Maida Vale.
Shamji later emigrated to the U.S. with his wife, Daniela Karnuts, founder of a high-fashion brand called Safiyaa whose £2,500 frocks have been worn by celebrities such as Meghan Markle and Michelle Obama.
He remains there to this day, and in November 2022 gave evidence via video link at Zac’s inquest, which recorded an open verdict.
A Met Police spokesperson previously said: ‘Our sincere condolences remain with Zac Brettler’s family, and we understand the uncertainty about how their son died must continue to be the cause of unimaginable pain.
‘Whenever someone dies unexpectedly in London, we have established policing protocols to follow, and the investigation into Zac’s death was led by an experienced detective.
‘The team worked hard to explore every possible hypothesis, which were shared with Zac’s family, but ultimately we were not able to provide fuller answers.
‘The case was also reviewed by specialist homicide detectives to ensure every line of enquiry had been exhausted.
‘As with any case, we would always encourage anyone who they believes they have additional information or evidence to contact police. Any new information will be examined on its own merit by a team led by experienced detectives.’