On Monday, 19 July, Raj Kundra, husband of Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty was arrested by the crime branch of Mumbai Police. According to Mumbai Police, the company of Raj Kundra was running operations for a London-based firm in order to produce pornographic content for India. It has been found that he was involved in the alleged creation of pornographic content and releasing it through some apps.
It was a shock for all the Shilpa Shetty fans to hear the news of Raj Kundra’s arrest this Monday. The case was registered with the Mumbai crime branch back in February 2021. According to Mr. Bharambe, Joint Commissioner of police, the reason for the delay in the arrest was the scanning of several electronic pieces of evidence in order to build a strong case.
On Tuesday, he was presented before the court and was remanded in police custody till July 23. However, no active role of Shilpa Shetty has been found in the case. The police have been appealing to the victims to come forward and contact the crime branch.
According to a senior police official, Raj Kundra’s Viaan industries was connected with Kenrin, a London based firm, owning hotshots app that is involved in publishing pornographic films. Although, the firm was London registered, but all of its operations and accounting were carried out by Viaan industries. After searching Raj Kundra’s office, e-mail exchanges, accounting details and porn films were found between the two business entities.
On the basis of this evidence, the crime branch arrested Raj Kundra and his IT head Ryan Thorpe. “We have sufficient evidence to prove that Raj Kundra was the key conspirator”, said the Mumbai police.
It was found during the investigation that a company named Armspire was involved in preparing Hotshots app for Kenrin. Money transfers were found in various bank accounts with victims of porn racket getting only a few thousand rupees.
According to the agreement between the two entities, Viaan industries had the responsibility of content creation and money that was transferred to Kundra’s firm by UK based entity. During the investigation, it was also found that some small-time artists were called for auditions and asked to give bold scenes. These later turned out to be nude scenes that were against the wishes of the actors.
Till now, 11 persons in total have been arrested by the Mumbai Police. Around 7.50 crores have been frozen by the crime branch in various accounts of app operators. As of now, ot is believed that the sole purpose of establishing Kenrin was to bypass laws as it is not allowed in India, but still all its operations were done in Mumbai.