An accused needed in a porn production case has revealed that Raj Kundra could have been arrested long back, but he avoided arrest so far by bribing Crime Branch officers with Rs 25 lakh. Fliz Movies [or Nuefliks, as previously known], the firm of Arvind Srivastava alias Yash Thakur, named as the kingpin of the racket in March, had complained to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) via an email the same month. The ACB forwarded it to the Mumbai police chief’s office in April. On Wednesday, the crime branch raided Kundra’s Andheri office.
Srivastava’s name cropped up again during the interrogation of the arrested accused, said officers. The accused told the police that after making a pornographic film, they would send it to Srivastava, who has also financed some of the films. The films were uploaded on Nuefliks, HotHit and Hotshots apps.
Nuefliks also claimed that a “demand, through a police informer, to pay an equal amount was also made to the firm”, in the email. Police had named the firm in March and seized two of its owner Srivastava’s bank accounts having about Rs 4.50 crore. These accounts were opened in Kanpur and Indore branches.
A senior officer from the crime branch told Afternoon voice on the condition of anonymity that “In such cases, the accusation is a common thing; they need to come with proofs. Whereas Police have busted this racket and have concrete evidence of this porn racket.”
Milind Bharambe, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) told AV, “When Raj Kundra’s name got involved in the case; the crime branch investigated the case by gathering enough evidence. He was arrested and named in the chargesheet only after detailed investigations.”
There were two aspects of the police probe. One was nabbing those who produced these porn shows and the other focused on those who broadcast these clips. Some of these production houses broadcast from servers outside the country.
One such UK production house, found to be uploading such content, came under the police scanner and its executive Umesk Kamat was arrested. An officer said that Kundra’s alleged connection to Kamat and the company that uploaded such pornographic content landed him in trouble.
