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

New Delhi, Oct 4 (IANS) 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 the month of September," it claimed.

The ED said that it successfully identified other major players involved in the money laundering operations of the Mahadev Online Book App.

"It was found that Kolkata-based Vikash Chhaparia was handling all the hawala related operations for the Mahadev APP," the agency said. "ED conducted searches at his known premises and at his associates like Govid Kedia. It was found that with the help of Kedia, Chaparia through his entities -- Perfect Plan Investments LLP, Exim General Trading FZCO and Techpro IT Solutions LLC -- was investing heavily in Indian Stock market by way of Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) route," the agency said.

"Accordingly, cash derivative and other security holdings worth Rs 236.3 crore in the name of entities beneficially owned by Chhaparia have been frozen by ED under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA)."

The agency also said that assets worth Rs 160 crore in DEMAT holdings of Kedia have also been frozen by ED. The searches at the premise of Kedia also resulted in seizure of Indian currency of Rs 18 lakh, gold and jewellery valued at Rs 13 crore.

The ED is probing Mahadev Online Book Betting App which is an umbrella syndicate arranging online platforms for enabling illegal betting websites to enrol new users, create user IDs and laundering of money through a layered web of benami bank accounts.

The ED source said that in the coming days, many celebrities who attended the ceremony of Chandrakar in Dubai will be quizzed by the financial probe agency sleuths.

There were several A-list celebrities, who had attended the ceremony in Dubai. On September 15, the ED said that it seized Rs 417 crore after carrying out searches in Kolkata, Bhopal, and Mumbai in connection with the case.

In a statement, the financial probe agency had said that the ED recently conducted widespread searches against the money laundering networks linked with Mahadev App in cities like Kolkata, Bhopal, Mumbai, etc., and retrieved large amount of incriminating evidences and has frozen or seized proceeds of crime worth Rs 417 crore.