Jacqueline Fernandez, Sukesh Chandrashekhar to face money laundering trial
A Delhi court on Saturday ordered framing of charges against actor Jacqueline Fernandez, alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekar, and 15 others in a Rs.200 crore money laundering case. Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Prashant Sharma said that “prima facie, there is sufficient material on record based upon which a strong suspicion is raised against all accused”. The persons “have to be charged with the offence (of money laundering) under Section 3 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, punishable under Section 4 of PMLA”, the ASJ said.
Chandrashekhar was arrested by the Delhi Police in 2017 and by the Enforcement Directorate in 2021. According to the prosecution, Sukesh Chandrashekhar was running an organised criminal network from inside jail and was impersonating senior government officials, including officers from the Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Ministry of Law and Justice.
Besides Sukesh Chandrasekhar alias Sukash Chandrashekhar, the accused include his wife Leena Maria Paul alias Leena Paulose, Jacqueline Fernandez, Deepak Ramnani, Pradeep Ramdanee, B Mohanraj, Arun Muthu, D Kamlesh Kothari, and Pinky Irani. The other accused were namely Pooja Singh, Dharam Singh Meena, Mahender Prasad Sundriyal, Sunder Bora, Komal Poddar, Jitender Narula, Avinash Kumar, and Jai Prakash Singhal.
It is alleged that by using spoofed calls, encrypted applications, and fabricated identities, complainant Aditi Singh and her family members were induced to part with huge sums of money. The prosecution alleged that the accused generated proceeds of crime amounting to more than Rs.200 crore through extortion, cheating, impersonation, and criminal intimidation, and thereafter concealed, possessed, transferred, layered, and projected the same as untainted property with the help of his associates.
It claimed the proceeds of crime were used in the purchase of property, high-end luxury vehicles, expensive and luxurious gifts, etc. The Enforcement Directorate alleged that, according to its probe, proceeds of crime were routed through various bank accounts, hawala channels, cash deliveries, and shell entities.
During the investigation, searches were conducted at several places, and various “incriminating” material were collected, and statements under Section 50 PMLA of the accused as well as of several witnesses were recorded, the ED said. It said digital evidence, including mobile phones, WhatsApp chats, Telegram communications, spoofed call records, forensic extraction reports, banking transactions, and cash movement details were also collected. The federal agency said in its second supplementary complaint against accused Jacqueline Fernandez that she was in constant touch with accused Chandrashekhar and had received valuable gifts from him through Pinky Irani.
Conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar was arrested by the Delhi Police in 2017 for allegedly taking a bribe from the then AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran, for getting a favourable verdict in the two leaves symbol case from the Election Commission. Later in 2021, he was caught operating in jail by making fake calls to promise bail to Religare promoter brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh. Sukesh managed to get Rs.200 crore from the wives of the Religare promoter brothers, pretending as top official from the Prime Minister’s Office. From jail, Sukesh used voice call over the internet to get the wives of the jailed persons.
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