ED summons Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor in Mahadev Books money laundering case

Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor has been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at its Mumbai office on Friday in connection with its probe into the Mahadev Books money laundering case, sources said on Wednesday.

The source said that the development comes in the wake of several Bollywood personalities attending the marriage ceremony of one of Mahadev Books' promoters, Sourabh Chandrakar, in the UAE.

The lavish wedding ceremony of Chandrakar 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 said that as per the digital evidence gathered by it, Rs 112 crore was delivered via hawala to an events management company -- R-1 Events Pvt Ltd of Yogesh Popat -- and hotel bookings worth Rs 42 crore were done by paying in cash in AEDs.

It also said that during the searches at the premises of Popat, Mithilesh and other linked organisers and evidence relating to receipt of Rs 112 crore hawala money was crystallised.

"Subsequently, searches were conducted on the angadias named by Popat and resulted in seizure of unaccounted cash of Rs 2.37 crore," the ED claimed.

The source said that in the coming days, many celebrities who attended the ceremony of Chandrakar in Dubai will be quizzed by the financial probe agency sleuths.

There were several A-list celebrities, who had attended the ceremony in Dubai.

Indo-Asian News Service