A US Link Found In Alia Bhatt Fraud Case. What Police Said

Alia Bhatt's former personal assistant allegedly leaked confidential information related to her production house Eternal Sunshine Productions to an unknown US resident and had duped the Bollywood actor of Rs 77 lakh by transferring money to bank accounts of various people and companies, Juhu Police officials probing the fraud said. 

Vedika Shetty, who worked as Ms Bhatt's personal assistant from 2021 to 2024, came in contact with a person named Shivasai Teja, who lives in the US, in December 2023. She then shared several confidential information pertaining to Eternal Sunshine Productions with the man through WhatsApp, without the knowledge and consent of the production house and its director, Soni Razdan.

Efforts are being made to ascertain more details about Teja and how he came in contact with Shetty, the officials said. Shetty was arrested from Bengaluru on Tuesday.

Besides, investigations also revealed that between May 2, 2022 and March 22, 2024, Shetty transferred huge sums of money from Ms Bhatt's account to the accounts of various people and firms, including one Satvik Sahu (₹43 lakh), Simi John (₹57,000) in the account of Simi John, Shashank Pandey (₹77,000), Chandni Jitendra Prasad Dixit (Rs 18 lakh) and ₹6 lakh in the name of a person named Manish Sukhij.

The former assistant also purchased goods worth Rs 4.36 lakh in the name of the production house and got them delivered to various addresses, the police said. IPhones and iPads worth rs 2.94 lakh were also purchased using the company's money, they added. 

Police said the fraud came to light in January this year when Shetty sent an invoice to Ms Bhatt on the pretext of clearing bills for an event. Ms Bhatt turned suspicious and called the mobile number mentioned on the invoice and found the receiver to be a friend of Shetty. Following this, Ms Bhatt got her bank accounts audited and learnt about the fraud, the police added.

Earlier, police said Shetty allegedly used to prepare fake invoices and get the actor's signature on them. She used to tell Ms Bhatt that those invoices were for various expenses incurred by the actor for travel, gatherings and meetings. 

After the actor signed the invoices, Shetty would send the relevant payment to her close friend, who used to transfer the entire deposited amount back to her account.

The accused has been booked under relevant legal provisions, including for cheating and criminal breach of trust, the police said.

After Ms Razdan filed a complaint, the police added, Shetty had gone into hiding and kept changing her location. She travelled to Rajasthan, Karnataka, Maharashtra, before eventually being caught in Bengaluru.

There was no official statement from either Ms Bhatt or her production house till the time of filing this report.