Celebrity businessman Raj Kundra and his firm’s IT head Ryan Thorpe have been remanded to 14-day judicial custody by a chief metropolitan magistrate court on Tuesday. The duo have been arrested in the alleged porn video racket case. Meanwhile, Kundra’s advocate applied for bail, the matter of which will come up for hearing on Wednesday.
Kundra, along with co-accused and IT head of the company Ryan Thorpe were produced before the court on Tuesday. While demanding additional seven-day custody, the crime branch told the court that the investigation was at a crucial stage and they have seized several important documents and electronic evidence from Kundra. They have also appointed a forensic auditor to help them with the investigations.
The police said that they are in the process of retrieving data from the electronic devices and said that the app had received $ 1,58,057 (₹1.17 crore) from Apple when it was available on App Store between August 2019 and July 2020.
While arresting Kundra, the crime branch claimed that he has been involved in the production and distribution of porn videos.
Through his tech firm, Arms Prime, he had developed several applications, including Hotshots, which was later sold to a UK-based company, Kenrin Pvt Ltd, which belongs to his brother-in-law Pradeep Bakshi. Even though Kundra sold the app and resigned from Arms Prime, he continued to be involved in activities of the app, which was handled by his former personal assistant Umesh Kamat, who has was arrested in the case in February.
