Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached assets worth over 7 crores of Bollywood star Jacqueline Fernandez in the extortion case against high-profile conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar. The attached assets include a fixed deposit of 7.12 Crores in Jacqueline’s name.
ED had estimated that Jacqueline received gifts of around 5.71 crores from Sukesh from his extorted money. In addition, he also gave cash totaling around 1.5 crores to Jacqueline’s family members.
The 200 crores extortion and money-laundering case
While jailed as an undertrial, Sukesh Chandrasekhar allegedly extorted 200 crores from the wife of the promoter of Religare enterprises Shivinder Mohan Singh. Pretending to be a senior government official, Sukesh conned Shivinder Singh’s wife Aditi Singh assuring her that he can secure Shivinder’s bail. Sukesh and his wife, actress Leena Maria Paul used hawala routes and shell companies to launder the proceeds of their scam.
Sukesh Chandrasekhar and his wife were then arrested by Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) over an alleged extortion racket being run from jail. Sukesh was allegedly bribing prison authorities to keep his cons running from the prison. Several Bollywood personalities like Jacqueline Fernandez and Nora Fatehi allegedly kept coming to the prison to meet him during his stay.
Jacqueline Fernandez and Sukesh Chandrasekhar
According to reports, apart from hiring private jets for Jacqueline Fernandez, Sukesh had also booked helicopter rides for the actress from the Kerala airport to hotels. Though ED sources had earlier claimed that Jacqueline visited Chennai to meet Sukesh, the ED probe reveals that Jacqueline also visited Kerala and Karnataka in luxury private jets and choppers arranged by Conman Sukesh.
Conman Sukesh in his statement to the central agency had stated that Jacqueline was his friend and that he had given $180,000 to Jacqueline’s sister Geraldine who lived in the USA. He also claimed that a Maserati and a Porsche were gifted to Jacqueline’s mother in Bahrain. Sukesh also informed ED that he had gifted Jacqueline several expensive gifts, which included Gucci outfits and Gucci shoes, Rolex watch, 15 pairs of earrings, 5 Birkin bags, Hermes bangles, and LV bags.