KOLKATA: The Enforcement Directorate on Friday questioned the CEO of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), owned by Red Chillies Entertainment and promoted by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, in its probe into the money laundering case involving the Rose Valley Group, which sponsored the IPL team team for two years.
A senior ED official told IANS that they had "called Venky Mysore for questioning under the sections of Prevention of Money Laundering Act over the alleged sponsorship deal with the KKR".
The official said that Mysore was being questioned about the sponsorship deal between the KKR and Gautam Kundu's Rose Valley Group. KKR is owned by Red Chillies Entertainment, promoted by Khan, Juhi Chawla and her husband Jay Mehta.
According to the ED officials, the Kundu-led Group had paid several crores in sponsorship to KKR. In return, Shah Rukh Khan shot advertisements for Rose Valley resorts in West Bengal in 2012 and 2013. Even a 25-seat dedicated corporate box was set up at the Eden Gardens stadium during KKR matches.
The official said that the agency wanted to understand about the nature of the transactions between the KKR and the Rose Valley Group. The Rose Valley ponzi scheme scam was unearthed in 2013. The group allegedly floated 27 companies to run various schemes and collected Rs 17,520 crore from depositors in West Bengal, Assam and Bihar.
The ED, which is investigating the scam along with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), has attached assets including resorts, hotels and land worth Rs 2,300 crore and recovered incriminating documents, gold ornaments and precious stones worth Rs 40 crore during searches at the showrooms of a jewellery house in connection with the scam.
It has earlier questioned Bengali superstar Prasenjit Chatterjee and popular Bengali actor Rituparna Sengupta in connection with the probe.