Nora Fatehi's spokesperson says 'actress has been victim' in Rs 200 cr money laundering case

NEW DELHI: Bollywood actress-dancer Nora Fatehi was on Thursday summoned and interrogated by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with Rs 200 crore money extortion case. The actress' spokesperson has now issued a fresh statement on the matter.

Asserting her cooperation in the ongoing probe with ED officials, the statement read, "To whomsoever it may concern. On behalf of Nora Fatehi, we would like to clarify the various conjectures floating around amongst the media. Nora Fatehi has been the victim around the case and being a witness, she is co-operating and helping the officers in the investigation. We would like to make it very clear that she has not been a part of any money laundering activity, she does not know or have any personal connection with the accused and has been called by ED to strictly help with the investigation.

We would like to request our fellow friends in the media to refrain from slandering her name and making any statements before any official information is released."

Along with Nora, it was also actress Jacqueline Fernandez who was summoned in the same case. However, the 'Race 3' actress skipped the ED questioning after which the probe agency issued a third time summon to the actress on Friday. Jacqueline was summoned to appear last month too but she did not join the investigation that time due to some reason. She was again summoned earlier this month with direction to appear before the investigators today (October 15).

According to ANI reports, the ED is looking into the possibility that money was invested abroad and it was led by Chandrasekhar, who is accused in 21 cases. This ED case is based on an FIR filed by Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) against Sukesh Chandrasekhar who is accused of cheating and extorting Aditi Singh, wife of the former promoter of Religare Enterprises Shivinder Mohan Singh, who was arrested in October 2019 in a case related to alleged misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd.Chandrasekhar and his associates reportedly took money from Aditi after posing as government officials and promising to get bail for her husband. 

Chandrasekhar reportedly persuaded Aditi to transfer money by impersonating a central government official over a spoof call while he was lodged in Rohini jail and promised to manage bail for her husband. Both Chandrasekhar and his actor wife Leena Maria Paul were arrested by the Delhi Police last month for their alleged role in the duping case. The Delhi Police has so far arrested 13 people in connection with the case.

The ED suspects that Chandrasekhar had extorted money from several people while he was in jail. ED officials had recently conducted raids at Chandrashekhar's sea-facing bungalow in Chennai and had found a fleet of 16 luxury cars worth crores of rupees. 

At the time of the incident, Chandrashekhar was lodged in Delhi's Rohini jail and was running an extortion racket from behind the bars.