New Delhi: Sara Ali Khan, Janhvi Kapoor and Bhumi Pednekar were among Bollywood stars in the crosshairs of a jailed con artist as recently as last year and the grifter met various female models and actors pretending to be a business tycoon inside Delhi’s Tihar jail in 2018 – two sensational new episodes in the Sukesh Chandrasekhar saga have emerged courtesy a recently filed charge sheet by the Enforcement Directorate.
Many of the actors and models were introduced to the fraudster by an associate Pinky Irani also known as Angel, 53, who herself took some of them to meet Sukesh Chandrasekhar in jail, the agency has said. She had been arrested by the agency in December last year and was recently granted bail by a Delhi court.
Irani has been accused by the Enforcement Directorate or ED of laundering money and helping Chandrasekhar establish contact with actor Jacqueline Fernandez and sending her expensive gifts on his behalf.
A supplementary charge sheet, detailing the role of Mumbai-based Irani in the money laundering case against 32-year-old Chandrasekhar and others, was filed by the Enforcement Directorate earlier this month before a court.
The agency, in this prosecution complaint, has attached replies sent to it by Bollywood actors Bhumi Pednekar, Sara Ali Khan and Janhvi Kapoor, who were similarly approached by Chandrasekhar allegedly through Irani.
Chandrasekhar and his wife Leena Maria Paul are being probed by the Delhi Police as well as the ED for allegedly cheating and extorting money from wealthy individuals like former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Mohan Singh’s wife Aditi Singh.
Investigators found that Chandrasekhar, while he was at Delhi’s Rohini jail, allegedly ran an extortion racket using phone spoofing technology. He was later shifted to the Tihar jail.
The Enforcement Directorate is tracking people who allegedly received proceeds from this scam and trying to unearth the money trail. So far, the agency has not named these actors or models as accused as they could be called upon as witnesses.
