Raj Kundra skips second ED summons in a week
He had expressed his inability to appear on Monday and had sought time, agency sources said.
MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) will summon businessman Raj Kundra, husband of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, again, as on Wednesday, he skipped the second summons issued by the agency in its money laundering investigation linked to alleged production and circulation of pornographic content through mobile apps.
This is the second time Kundra did not appear before the agency this week. He had expressed his inability to appear on Monday and had sought time, agency sources said.
The ED wants to record Kundra’s statement on his alleged role in the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), said the sources. While the agency is yet to confirm a fresh date for summoning Kundra, there is a possibility that he could be summoned within 7-8 days again, sources claimed.
The move to question Kundra and others follows raids conducted by the ED on Friday at 15 locations linked with the accused in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, in which several bank accounts were frozen and cyber-digital devices collected. The searches were conducted at Mumbai, Kanpur, Gorakhpur and Kushinagar, including at the premises of individuals who allegedly provided technical support to the porn apps in lieu of payments.
The agency is scrutinising records and documents recovered during the searches and is focusing on tracing the flow of the alleged proceeds of crime in the case across the country as well as overseas, agency sources said. By tracing the flow, the agency seeks to trace and establish the end-beneficiaries in the case, the sources added.
IN ED’s CROSSHAIRS
Kundra has been in ED’s crosshairs in the past as well, in two separate cases.
In April, the ED had provisionally attached his assets worth ₹97.79 crore, including a Juhu flat, in connection with a money-laundering probe linked to a ₹6,600-crore bitcoin-based Ponzi scheme. According to ED sources, Kundra allegedly received 285 bitcoins, valued at around ₹150 crore, from the case’s mastermind, Amit Bhardwaj, for a failed Bitcoin mining project in Ukraine.
Earlier, in October 2019, the ED had questioned Kundra to record his statement in another case, which was in connection with its then money-laundering investigation into assets of the late gangster Iqbal Mirchi. Kundra was questioned in connection with an alleged transaction between one of his firms and a firm associated with a property dealer arrested in the case.
The transaction allegedly involved the sale of a plot near the Mumbai airport, according to ED. Kundra had then tweeted: “In 2011, we sold a plot that I owned near the airport including the company to RKW Developers. Everything is documented and verified by my CA. This is the be-all and end-all of the deal. Any loans given to the company in question were after we sold the company to the new owner. We sold a zero-debt company!”
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