MUMBAI: Actor Jacqueline Fernandez was on Sunday stopped at the Mumbai Airport by immigration officials and prevented from leaving for Dubai for a show.
The detention followed an ED ‘look out circular’ for her. The spotlight is on expensive gifts which a conman Sukesh Chandrasekar gave to the actor. It is alleged that these gifts were purchased from alleged proceeds of crime.
After a couple of hours, Fernandez was asked to leave the airport. The ED will now serve fresh summons on her.
The gifts find a mention in ED’s chargesheet against Chandrasekar in Rs 200 crore extortion case; the conman had allegedly extorted money from a prominent businessman's wife.
A horse worth Rs 52 lakh and a Persian cat worth Rs 9 lakh were among the gifts worth Rs10 crores allegedly given by Chandrashekar to Fernandez, the ED has said in its chargesheet, as per media reports.
Another actor Nora Fatehi’s name had also cropped up in the case; Fatehi had issued a statement recently saying that she is not involved in any such extortion activity, but she herself was a victim of it.
Chandrasekhar is a native of Bengaluru and is believed to be in his late thirties. With a penchant for leading a lavish lifestyle, he reportedly started conning people at the age of 17. Currently lodged in a Delhi jail in alleged criminal cases, he was in news when the ED “seized" a luxurious sea-facing bungalow in Chennai, Rs 82.5 lakh in cash and over a dozen luxury cars in connection with the money laundering case.
Chandrasekhar was lodged in Tihar jail after he was arrested in April 2017 from a hotel in the infamous Election Commission bribery case. It was alleged that he took money from AIADMK (Amma) leader T T V Dhinakaran to bribe EC officials in connection with a dispute over the AIADMK “two leaves" poll symbol.
Chandrasekhar had allegedly struck a deal for Rs 50 crore to help the AIADMK (Amma) faction keep the “two leaves" symbol. An amount of Rs 1.3 crore was allegedly seized from his possession at the time of his arrest.
When he was lodged in Tihar jail, reports emerged that he ran an extortion racket running into several crores despite being behind bars.
After coming out on bail, he started duping high-profile people again by posing as a relative of political leaders and a Supreme Court judge. He is an accused in several criminal cases, including extortion, across the country.
