Cheating complaint lodged against actor Shilpa Shetty, husband

Mumbai: A complaint of cheating has been lodged against Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty, her husband Raj Kundra and others for allegedly duping an investor in a gold purchase scheme, the city police said on Thursday.

Kundra, in a late-evening statement, denied the charges.

Sachin Joshi, a non-resident Indian (NRI), approached the Khar police recently with a complaint that he had been cheated by Satyug Gold Pvt Ltd, a gold trading company formerly headed by Shetty and Kundra, an official said.

According to the complainant, he had purchased nearly a kilo of gold for Rs 18.58 lakh from the company in a gold scheme in March 2014, he said.

Under the five-year plan, the buyer was offered a gold card at a discounted rate and promised a certain quantity of gold redeemable at the end of the term, he said.

Joshi’s term plan ended on March 25, 2019, and when he tried to redeem the card, he found that the company’s office at Bandra Kurla Complex had shut down, the official said.

On probing a little, the complainant found that Shetty and Kundra, who were the directors of the company, had resigned in May 2016 and November 2017, respectively, he said.

Feeling cheated, Joshi lodged the complaint, the official said, adding that as of now, no FIR has been filed and investigations are underway.

Raj Kundra said in a statement in the evening that it was a “false narrative”.