Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, earned at least Rs 1.17 crore between August and December last year from his business of production and online distribution of porn films. The revelation was made by Mumbai Crime Branch on Tuesday before a magistrate court. The cops have found the details of revenue and payments of controversial Hotshots app from the mobile and MacBook chats between businessman Raj Kundra and his company's IT head Ryan Thorpe.“Interrogation of Ryan Thorpe, another accused in the case, revealed that revenue from Hotshots (an online app or platform through which alleged porn content was made available) was Rs 1, 17, 64,886 (USD 1,58,057) between August and December 2020," the remand plea of the police said. This revenue was earned from the app on Apple store and the police have sought information from Google too, it said. The app had more users on Google Play than the Apple store before it was removed, so he must have earned much more revenue, the police claimed.
Kundra was arrested July 19 by the Mumbai police crime branch under sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act.The crime branch had in its earlier remand applications revealed that Kundra had got a mobile app developed for running a pornographic film racket and used to control its entire operation himself through WhatsApp groups. The police claimed that it was through three WhatsApp groups – HS Accounts, HS Take Down and HS Operations – that Kundra used to monitor the content, payments to artists and revenue generated through the app and issue payments instructions and details. Bakshi used to make the payments based on Kundra’s instructions, the remand application added. The police’s application stated that three bank accounts – two of Arms Prime Media Pvt Ltd and one account of Avalanche Technology Pvt Ltd, having a total balance of over ₹1.13 crore – have been debit-freezed.
According to the police in February 2019, Kundra set up a company, Arms Prime Media Pvt Ltd, for himself and one Sourabh Kushwah. About six months later, the company developed a mobile phone app, Hotshots, and then sold it to Kenrin Ltd, a London-based entity owned by Kundra’s relative Pardeep Bakshi for USD 25,000 ( around ₹18.62 lakh). In December 2019, Kundra resigned from Arms Prime Media, after which a man named Sanjay Tripathi, who is now a witness in the case, took over. Today a magistrate court denied bail to Kundra and his legal team has now moved to sessions court.