Who Is Sukesh Chandrashekhar? ‘Mastermind’ Of Rs 200-Crore Extortion Case. Know All Charges Against Him

From the age of 17, Chandrashekhar started cheating people by imposting as senior government officers over calls.

New Delhi: Sukesh Chandrashekhar, the prime accused in a Rs200-crore money laundering case, has been charged with duping the wife of former Ranbaxy owner Shivinder Singh, Aditi Singh, while he was lodged in Tihar jail. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is probing the money trail of the proceeds in the case.

Chandrashekhar and his actress wife Leena Maria Paul are being probed by the Delhi Police as well as the ED for allegedly cheating several rich people.

Who is Sukesh Chandrashekhar?

In a statement, ED has said Chandrashekhar is a "known conman". Born in a lower middle-class family in Bengaluru, Chandrashekhar dropped out of school after Class 12 even though his father always pushed him for studies, according to an India Today report.

A resident of Bhawani Nagar in Bengaluru, Chandrashekhar started working in the real estate sector, as per the report. 

From the age of 17, he started cheating people by imposting as senior government officers over calls. In 2007, even before he turned 18, he tried duping over 100 people on the pretext of getting their work done by the Bangalore Development Authority, by posing as a high-ranking bureaucrat. However, authorities succeeded in exposing him.

His first arrest was in 2007. However, he was so lured by the extortion “business” by then that the arrests did not deter him and he continued with his ways. "Chandrasekhar is the mastermind of this fraud. He has been part of the crime world since the age of 17. He has multiple FIRs against him...," the ED said about the Rs 200-crore extortion case.

What are the cases against him?

He is being probed by the Delhi Police in a case of alleged criminal conspiracy, cheating and extortion to the tune of about Rs 200 crore. Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) had earlier registered an FIR against Chandrasekhar for allegedly duping the spouses of former promoters of Ranbaxy, Shivinder Singh and Malvinder Singh, of Rs 200 crore.

There are over 20 other cases of extortion registered against the conman who operated a racket from inside his jail cell, according to the India Today report.

The ED recently arrested the couple and others under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in the matter related to the extortion racket which was being run from a jail here. Aditi Singh used to visit her husband Shivinder Mohan Singh, arrested in 2019 in a fund misappropriation case.

That was when Sukesh met Aditi in jail and called her from a virtual number using a spoofing app and posed as a central government official. "While speaking (from prison) to these persons, he claimed to be a government officer offering to help people for a price," the ED had claimed.

Investigation by the agencies found that Chandrashekhar, while he was lodged in the Rohini jail here, allegedly ran an extortion racket using phone spoofing technology.

The ED had arrested the couple and two co-accused, Pradeep Ramnani and Deepak Ramnani, and recently Chandrashekhar's associate Pinky Irani, in this case.

According to the ED charge sheet, Sukesh Chandrashekhar befriended actor Jacqueline Fernandez by making a fake call by impersonating someone from Union home Minister Amit Shah's office. Jacqueline Fernandez and Nora fatehi and have admitted to receiving extravagant presents from the conman during their interrogation round by the ED.

Sukesh Chandrashekhar made a "spoofed" call replicating the office number of Shah to befriend actor Jacqueline Fernandez even as he claimed that he hailed from late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa's "political family", the ED has said in a chargesheet filed under the anti-money laundering law.

(With inputs from PTI)