Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty’s husband Raj Kundra, who is in police custody for the creation and publishing of pornographic material over mobile apps, had been reportedly evading arrest in the case by allegedly paying a bribe to the tune of Rs 25 lakhs to officers in the Mumbai crime branch. Another accused in the same case has said this to media.
According to a report by Mid-Day, one Arvind Srivastava alias Yash Thakur, an absconding accused who was named as the porn racket’s kingpin in March, had emailed a complaint to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in the same month, alleging that Kundra paid a bribe of Rs 25 lakh to Crime Branch sleuths to avoid getting arrested in the case.
The ACB had forwarded the purported e-mail by Thakur to the Mumbai Police commissioner’s office in the month of April but the Mumbai police had refused to comment on the matter. Kundra was arrested by Mumbai’s crime branch only on July 19th, 2021.
According to the report, the complainant Arvind Srivastava alias Yash Thakur had attached screenshots of a WhatsApp conversation regarding the alleged bribe. The chat, however, nowhere mentioned Raj Kundra’s name, said an ACB officer familiar with the case.
“The ACB investigates only if there is demand for money and it can lay a trap. Since, in this case, the money had already exchanged hands, as alleged, the complaint was forwarded to the concerned department (Mumbai police) to initiate an action,” a senior-level ACB officer said on condition of anonymity.
According to the Mid-Day report, the e-mail also mentioned that a police officer had demanded Yash Thakur’s company Fliz Movies, previously named Nuefliks to pay up a similar sum.
Yash Thakur’s company was named by police in March for involvement in porn racket
It is pertinent to note here that Fliz Movies or Nuefliks is a US-based firm owned by Arvind Srivastava alias Yash Thakur. According to reports, Mumbai police had named Fliz Movies or Nuefliks in the porn racket in the month of March. It had then seized two bank accounts of this US-based firm having about Rs 4.50 crore cumulatively. These accounts were opened in Kanpur and Indore branches.
During interrogation, Raj Kundra and 6 other arrested accused, including Kundra’s aide Ryan Thorpe, a producer-director Rowa Khan alias Yasmeen, photographer Monu Sharma, creative director Pratibha Nalawade, and two actors, Arish Shaikh and Bhanu Thaku, reportedly told the police that after making a pornographic film, they would send it to Arvind Srivastava, who has also financed some of the films. The films were uploaded on Nuefliks, HotHit and Hotshots apps.
Raj Kundra ran his pornography business via WhatsApp groups: Mid-day report
The Mumbai Crime Branch on Wednesday revealed that Raj Kundra ran his pornography business via well established WhatsApp groups named HS-account, HS-operation and HS-take down. According to Mid-Day, the Crime Branch revealed that Kundra assigned tasks to employees on each of these three groups and also had a legal team in place.
According to reports, the Mumbai crime branch has recovered at least 70 videos shot by Raj Kundra’s former PA Umesh Kamat with the help of different production houses.
Mumbai police freeze close to Rs 7.21 crore in bank accounts of people involved in the porn racket
Meanwhile, the Crime Branch cops have seized Raj Kundra’s servers and have also frozen close to Rs 7.21 crore in different people’s bank accounts.
‘Adult content but cannot be classified as porn’: lawyer defends Raj Kundra
Raj Kundra’s lawyer, meanwhile, has come out in the former’s defence saying that it is incorrect to label the adult film content as porn as there was no “actual intercourse” shown in the videos. He stated that it can be defined as vulgar content but not pornographic.
Raj Kundra has been sent to police custody till July 23.
