Bollywood actress Nora Fatehi’s brother-in-law Mehboob aka Bobby Khan, who is also a film director, got a BMW car as a gift from jailed conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar, a senior official from the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police said on Thursday.
To corroborate the lead, the EOW on Thursday called Fatehi, Mehboob and Pinky Irani, who is an associate of Chandrashekar, at its office at Mandir Marg in New Delhi. Their interrogation went on for at least 5 hours.
This was the second time that Fatehi, who is popular for her dance numbers, was called to the EOW office in connection with a ₹200 crore money laundering case involving Chandrasekhar.
A native of Karnataka’s Bengaluru, Chandrashekhar is currently lodged in a jail in Delhi. He is accused in more than 10 criminal cases. He was reportedly running a racket that allegedly extorted ₹200 crore when he was lodged in Mandoli Jail.
Yesterday, EOW grilled another Bollywood actress, Jacqueline Fernandez, for eight hours at its office in connection with the same case.
The Special Commissioner of Police (EOW) Ravindra Yadav told The New Indian that Chandrasekhar would try to impress the Bollywood actresses with a blatant display of his wealth, acquired through extortion.
Irani is the person who approached Fatehi in the direction of Chandrashekhar. She was called to participate in an event at the studio in Chennai owned by Chandrashekar’s wife, Leena Maria, last year.
Fatehi was offered a BMW car as a participation fee for an event. During questioning, Fatehi said that she refused to take that gift. However, she said that they should give it to her brother-in-law Mehboob.
Mehboob, who is a native of Morocco, mostly lives in Mumbai and works in the Bollywood industry. He also directed the movie Leela Ek Paheli in which Sunny Leone played a lead role.
Sources said Pinky introduced herself to Fatehi with the name ‘Angel’. The EOW officers said that she would often ignore Chandrashekar as he repeatedly tried to approach her through Irani. “Today, we called Fatehi, Irani and Mehboob and confronted each other. We also recorded their statements separately,” the officer said.
Meanwhile, EOW has also recovered a superbike – Ducati – that cost around ₹8 lakh from Prashant, manager of Fernandez. This bike was gifted by Chandrashekhar to Prashant. Prashant was also called yesterday and his bike was seized as it was bought on illegal money acquired by Chandrashekar.
The same money laundering case is also being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). In its supplementary charge sheet filed recently, the agency said that Fernandez was aware of Chandrasekhar’s criminal past but continued with financial transactions with him. She is a co-accused in the charge sheet filed before a special PMLA court.