Nora Fatehi to be ED witness in conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar`s Rs 200 cr extortion case

NEW DELHI: Actor-dancer Nora Fatehi, who is under the scanner of the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the Rs 200-crore extortion case in which Sukesh Chandrasekhar has been named the prime accused, will be the prosecution witness. 

Bollywood actresses Nora and Jacqueline Fernandez have been facing interrogation by the ED in the extortion case. Both actors have appeared before financial probe agencies for questioning several times. The ED suspects that Nora was allegedly gifted a BMW by conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar. However, the actress revealed during her interrogation that she was gifted a car by Sukesh, and a Gucci bag and an iPhone as a 'token of love' by his wife Leena Maria Paul. 

Nora Fatehi had then told the ED that she was invited by Leena Maria Paul for an event. The event took place in December 2020 in Chennai.

The ED officials confronted Nora Fatehi with Sukesh on October 14. During this, the gift part was discussed. The same day, the actress' team released an official statement, claiming she was not part of any money laundering activity.

However, as per PTI, the agency claimed that Chandrashekar gifted a BMW car to Fatehi in December 2020 and later gave her Rs 75 lakh, besides other expensive gifts.

Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) had earlier registered an FIR against Chandrasekhar for allegedly duping the spouses of former promoters of Ranbaxy, Shivinder Singh, and Malvinder Singh, of Rs 200 crore. The ED filed its complaint based on a police FIR.

Alleged con man Sukesh Chandrashekhar was using certain high-end mobile phone application to spoof the landline numbers of different higher government authorities for extorting large amounts of money from several individuals from inside Rohini jail, Delhi police has told a court here in its charge sheet. The police claimed in its final report filed that Chandrashekhar lived inside the jail like a 'king'.

It claimed that he was using a mobile number to carry out extortion by impersonating himself as a high-ranking government functionary.

According to the charge sheet, deputy jail superintendent D S Meena, arrested in the case, used to collect Rs 60 to 75 lakh fortnightly from co-accused Deepak and Pradeep Ramnani which was distributed among the jail officials to provide safety and facilities for Chandrashekhar to continue his extortion racket.

Of that, around Rs 50 lakh will be given to the officers above the rank of assistant superintendent (AS), and Rs 10 lakh to those below the ranks of AS, the charge sheet quoted from Meena's confessional statement to the police.