Mumbai, 29 Nov

The Enforcement Directorate on Friday raided the premises of businessman Raj Kundra, the husband of actor Shilpa Shetty, and some others as part of a money laundering case linked to alleged distribution of pornographic and adult movies, official sources said.

Around 15 locations in Mumbai and some cities in Uttar Pradesh are being searched, including the home and office of 49-year-old Kundra and some other persons, the sources said.

The agency is understood to be questioning Kundra at one of these premises. This money laundering case of May 2022 stems from at least two Mumbai police FIRs and chargesheets filed against Kundra and others. The businessman and some others were arrested in the case by the police and later granted bail.

This is the second money laundering case against Kundra. Early this year, the ED had attached assets worth Rs 98 crore of Kundra and Shetty in a crypto currency case. The couple, however, obtained relief from the Bombay High Court against this ED attachment order.

The businessman had told a local Mumbai court in 2021 that there was not even an iota of evidence with the prosecution (Mumbai Police) that would connect the app 'Hotshots', used in the alleged porn films racket, with an offence under law.

According to the probe agency, the 'Hotshots' app was being used by accused persons for uploading and streaming obscene content.

Kundra had claimed there was no evidence of him being "actively" involved in creation of alleged questionable porn content. He had said he was falsely implicated and was not even named in the FIR and was dragged by the respondent (police) in the case.

The businessman claimed in the plea that he is being made a "scapegoat" for reasons best known to investigators.

The police had filed FIRs on the basis of complaints received from two women, while another one woman had submitted a complaint at the Lonavla police station, around 120 km from Mumbai.

During investigation it came to light that some small-time artistes were lured by giving them breaks in some web series or short stories, police had said.

These actors were called for auditions and were asked to give 'bold' scenes, which later turned out to be semi-nude or nude scenes, which were against the wishes of the actors, the official had said.

During the police investigation, it also came to light that there were many porn-like apps (applications) which were operating in cyberspace.

The police had told the court that its probe found that Kundra set up Armsprime Media Pvt Ltd, which, through London-based Kenrin Pvt Ltd, bought the Hot Shots app to upload "objectionable videos" on social media.

Kundra's phone contained WhatsApp chats regarding Kenrin and its economic transactions. These conversations also revealed that he had discussed selling 119 adult films to a person for USD 1.2 million, police had said.