ED summons Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor in Mahadev Books money laundering case

 Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor has been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at its Mumbai office on Friday in connection with its probe into the Mahadev Books money laundering case, sources said on Wednesday.

A source said that the development comes in the wake of several Bollywood personalities attending the marriage ceremony of one of Mahadev Books' promoters, Sourabh Chandrakar, in the UAE.

It is alleged that many celebrities endorsed the mobile gaming application of the Mahadev Books in lieu of hefty money.

Even the lavish wedding ceremony of Chandrakar was attended by many Bollywood celebrities and the financial probe agency had found the details of the payments of hotels and transport details during the searches it carried out last month, the source added.

It is alleged that the Mahadev Books spent around Rs 200 crore on the marriage ceremony programme in Dubai with private jets hired to ferry family members from Nagpur to the UAE.

The ED probe had also found that celebrities were hired to perform in the marriage. Wedding planners, dancers, decorators, etc, were hired from Mumbai and hawala channels were used to make payments in cash.

As per the digital evidence gathered by it, Rs 112 crore was delivered via hawala to an events management company -- R-1 Events Pvt Ltd of Yogesh Popat -- and hotel bookings worth Rs 42 crore were done by paying in cash in AEDs, the ED said.

It also said that during the searches at the premises of Popat, Mithilesh and other linked organisers and evidence relating to receipt of Rs 112 crore hawala money was crystallised.

"Subsequently, searches were conducted on the angadias named by Popat and resulted in seizure of unaccounted cash of Rs 2.37 crore," the ED claimed.

The ED further said that many celebrities have been endorsing these betting entities and performing at their functions in return for hefty fees layered through dubious transactions, but ultimately paid from the proceeds of online betting.

The agency also carried out searches at the premises of Rapid Travels of Dheeraj Ahuja and Vishal Ahuja at Bhopal. The ED said that the company was responsible for the entire ticketing operations of the Mahadev APP promoters, family, business associates and even for the celebrities who were endorsing betting websites like fairplay.com, reddyanna APP, Mahadev APP.

"The illicit cash earnings from the betting panels were cleverly deposited by Ahuja brothers with main ticket providers, and the wallet balance was used to book domestic and international tickets. Rapid Travels was involved in making travel arrangements for most events of Mahadev group, including the annual star-studded events organised in the UAE in September," it claimed. (IANS)

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