After Ranbir Kapoor, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday summoned celebrities like Huma Qureshi, Kapil Sharma, and Heena Khan in connection with its probe into the Mahadev Books alleged money laundering case.
An ED source said that the agency has asked them to appear before it in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur.
The development comes a day after the financial probe agency summoned Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor.
The source said that several celebrities are on the agency’s scanner and they will be called for questioning in coming days.
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 firm promoter Sunil Chandrakar in the UAE 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.
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 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. 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.
