Mumbai: Mumbai Police’s EOW has issued a Look Out Circular (LOC) against actress Shilpa Shetty and her businessman husband Raj Kundra, accused of defrauding a businessman of 60 crores.
A senior officer of the Mumbai police had stated that the police are reviewing the couple’s travel logs and will issue a lookout notice against them if necessary, which has now been issued.
The investigators are attempting to trace the money flow since the timeframe of the alleged fraud. When the case went to the NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal), the auditor who conducted the audit has also summoned for questioning by the police.
For the unversed, businessman Deepak Kothari has alleged that Shilpa and Raj conspired to cheat him of more than 60 crores. He claimed that the money given in the name of business expansion between 2015 and 2023 was actually squandered on personal expenses.
In 2015, Kothari allegedly met an agent, Rajesh Arya, who claimed to have connections with Shilpa-Raj’s company, Best Deal TV Pvt. Ltd. Arya allegedly requested a loan from him of 75 crores at an annual interest rate of 12%.
What was initially supposed to be a loan was later turned into an ‘investment.’ Kothari transferred the first installment of around 31.95 crores in April 2015.
This was allegedly followed by a second agreement in September 2015, and an amount of 28.54 crores was transferred between July 2015 and March 2016, coming to a total payment of 60 crores 48 lakh 98 thousand 700 rupees by Kothari, along with an additional stamp duty of 3 lakh 19 thousand 500 rupees.
Shilpa, who had allegedly provided a personal guarantee in April 2016, suddenly resigned from her post as the director of the company in September 2016.
Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that the company was facing an insolvency case of 1.28 crores, which Kothari was allegedly not informed about.
When he asked for his money back, they allegedly just started avoiding the issue.
Kothari has accused Shilpa, Raj, and their associates were running a well-planned conspiracy.
The Mumbai police’s EOW has filed an FIR under IPC sections 403, 406, and 34.
