Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty's businessman husband, Raj Kundra, has been arrested by Mumbai Police on Monday night for allegedly making pornographic films and publishing them through apps. Mumbai Police said "the case in this regard was filed in February this year and Kundra was the “key conspirator" in the matter". "They have sufficient evidence against Kundra, who was arrested after several hours of interrogation", Police added.
Commissioner of Mumbai Police, Hemant Nagrale said, “There was a case registered with Crime Branch Mumbai in February 2021 about creation of pornographic films and publishing them through some apps. We’ve arrested Mr Raj Kundra in this case on 19/7/21 as he appears to be the key conspirator of this. We have sufficient evidences regarding this. Investigation is in progress".
The involved gang is busted by the Property Cell of the Mumbai Police recently under the pretext of producing short films for OTT (over-the-top) platforms. Actor Gehana Vasisth has been arrested along with eight others in the case.
According to the Crime Branch, "after shooting the porn videos, the accused use to send them to a foreign-based company through ‘WeTransfer’ and the same was uploaded on various apps to evade Indian law". During the probe, the Crime Branch arrested a person, identified as Umesh Kamat, who had worked with Kundra. After his arrest, Kundra’s key role in the porn racket surfaced, but the Crime Branch didn’t arrest him at the time for want of evidence.
“Our team worked on it closely after filing the first chargesheet in the case. During the probe, we found that the accused, in fact, sent WeTransfer files abroad sitting in Kundra’s office," said an officer of the Crime Branch. As per sources, the crime branch said "the gang used to lure aspiring actors in the name of giving them meaty roles in films on OTT platforms, but later they forced them into pornography. The accused used to earn Rs 2-3 lakh per video and the victims were just paid Rs 20,000-Rs 25,000".
The apps used to upload porn videos using foreign IP address were HotShot, Nuefliks, HotHit and escapenow.tv. Equipments worth Rs 5.68 lakh, which was used for shooting porn videos at a bungalow are seized by the police. Earlier, Kundra was summoned by ED in 2019, in connection with its money laundering probe against late gangster Iqbal Mirchi and others.