KUNDRA RAKED IN THE MOOLAH DURING LOCKDOWN, EARNED LAKHS DAILY

Despite the lockdown, businessman and Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty’s husband, Raj Kundra, who has been arrested by the Mumbai Police in connection with a case involving the creation of pornographic films and their publication through mobile apps, used to earn Rs 6-8 lakh daily from the business, Mumbai’s Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch), Milind Bharambe. Bharambe said that Raj Kundra used to earn Rs 2-3 lakh daily, which later went up to 6-8 lakh. “Documents of financial transactions run into thousands. We are analysing the details to get exact earnings. The same will be treated as proceeds of the crime. So far, we have frozen Rs 7.5 crore in various accounts,” Bharambe added.

The Mumbai Police arrested Kundra and his brother-in-law Pradeep Bakshi and said that they are the alleged masterminds of an international pornographic films racket perpetrated through their content production companies based in India and the United Kingdom. It is pertinent to mention here that the Mumbai Police during its searches came across Kundra’s daily monetary transactions through the alleged porn content application. It is also looking into the transaction record of other companies linked to Kundra. The police department probing the matter suspects that the money made from selling the content outside India was also being diverted into other businesses.

Raj Kundra was a key member in developing the app ‘Hotshots’, which is a “video-on-demand service that provides premium digital entertainment”, the Mumbai Police said in its briefing on Tuesday. According to sources, Shilpa Shetty’s husband was “instrumental” in using the “Hotshots” app to distribute the aforementioned explicit content.

Umesh Kamat, who was arrested earlier, was questioned by the Mumbai Police for their investigation on the case. Kamat, during the questioning, mentioned how he had been working for Kundra and that the latter had also hired two people to manage the “Hotshots” app. A WhatsApp chat accessed by Republic Media Network confirmed the mention of Kamat. In the chat dated November 2020, Raj Kundra talks to Kamat and informs him that they might be asked to take down certain content on the app (HotShots) which was “objectionable”. The chats show the duo then discussing a way to “sustain” Hotshots amid the row. The last transaction between the two accounts is as of January 2021, a month before a case was filed against Kundra, and the arrest of the actress who is now found to have been operating the mobile app account.