Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate on Monday revealed in the 200 crore money laundering case which was conducted from a barrack of Rohini jail with the aid of jail staff had a crucial exponent, Sukesh Chandrashekhar’s wife Leena Maria Paul.
According to the ED chargesheet, Leena Maria Paul, who is an actor, is a master con woman and strategist and the brain behind the schemes “devised to launder the proceeds of the crime”, news agency ANI reported.
The case dates back to September when the Delhi Police arrested Sukesh Chandrashekhar and Leena in the ₹200 crore money laundering case. But the investigation into the case has yielded sensational details, starting from the don’s modus operandi of impersonating government officials and the alleged connection to many Bollywood personalities, including Jacqueline Fernandez, Nora Fatehi etc. Sukesh and Leena have dozens of luxury cars, a sea-facing bungalow in Chennai which all have been seized by the ED.
In connection with the case, Sukesh was arrested first and as soon as the news reached his wife, she deleted all evidence, the ED said. Leena pretends that she has no role in anything at all while ED says co-accused in the case Arun Muthu, Anand Moorthy and Jagdish have stated “specific instances of her threatening them”.
Who is Leena Maria Paul?
Leena Maria Paul is a Malayali actor who was seen in the role of a Tamil rebel in Shoojit Sircar’s Madras Cafe.
Her modelling-acting career began in 2009 and she featured in movies like Husbands in Goa, Cobra, Biriyani etc.
According to reports, Sukesh and Leena Maria Paul began dating in 2010 and Sukesh told her he belonged to a political family.
This is not the first case in which the husband and the wife have been arrested together, In 2013, they were arrested for allegedly duping a Chennai bank of ₹19 crore. After this case, they relocated to Goregaon and were arrested in another cheating case of ₹10 crore.
In 2018, two persons allegedly hired by underworld don Ravi Pujari had fired bullets at a luxury nail salon in Panampilly Nagar in Kochi, owned by the actor.
Enforcement Directorate believes Leena was not only a beneficiary of the proceeds of Sukesh’s latest crime in which he took money from the wife of a former promoter of Religare Enterprises Shivinder Mohan Singh, but also is the key to locate the money. ED is now probing whether the money has been invested abroad.
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