Madras Cafe actor Leena Paul, 5 others arrested for Rs 10cr fraud

Six people, including ‘Madras Cafe’ actress Leena Maria Paul, her partner and the son, grandson as well as a nephew of lyricist Hasrat Jaipuri were arrested on Tuesday for cheating nearly 1,000 Mumbaiites of Rs 10 crore.

Six people, including ‘Madras Cafe’ actress Leena Maria Paul and three family members of lyricist Hasrat Jaipuri, were arrested on Tuesday for cheating nearly 1,000 Mumbaiites of Rs 10 crore.

Actress-Leena-Maria-Paul

The Economics Offences Wing (EOW) arrested Paul, her partner Shekhar Chandrashekar, and Jaipuri’s grandson Adil Hussain Jaipuri, son Akhtar Hussain Jaipuri and nephew Nasir Mumtaj Jaipuri. Another person, Salman Pheroz Rizvi, was also arrested.

EOW officers recovered nine high-end cars, including a Maserati, Bentley, Mercedes, Audi, Nissan, among others worth Rs 5 crore from Paul and Chandrashekar’s house. The agency also recovered 117 imported watches worth Rs1.17 crore from the house. The accused were produced before a local court, which remanded them in police custody till June 4.

According to EOW officials, Chandrashekar and his associates operated a money-circulating scheme under a firm named ‘Lion Oak India’ and illegally accepted cash deposits by floating various bogus schemes named ‘Lucky Number 5’, ‘Special Harvest Week’ and ‘Super Harvest Plus’, among others.

Dhananjay Kamlakar, joint commissioner of police (EOW) said, “They would accept cash deposits anywhere in the range of Rs 5,000 to Rs 30 lakh.”

It is not the first time Paul and her partner Chandreshekar have been arrested for cheating. In May 2013, the duo had been arrested from a farmhouse in south Delhi for allegedly cheating a Chennai bank of Rs 19 crore.