Following his arrest for alleged involvement in a pornography case, businessman Raj Kundra has been sent to police custody till July 23.

The case is about him luring in aspiring actors and models with a promise to give them a break, and then allegedly forcing women into porn.

It all started in 2019 when the 45-year-old invested in a tech start-up Armsprime Media. They went on to sign Poonam Pandey, Gehana Vasisth and Sherlyn Chopra. Soon, Pandey filed a case against Kundra for theft and Kundra said he is not an investor anymore.

This year, his name cropped up again in connection with the company, leading to his arrest. Vasisth was also arrested in the same case and is out on bail. Her publicist released a statement on her behalf saying, “Police should investigate fully as there are more skeletons in the cupboards of the rich.”

Pandey shares that all her sympathies are with Shilpa and her kids. “I can’t imagine what she must be going through. So, I refuse to use this opportunity to highlight my trauma. The only thing I’ll add is that I had filed a complaint against him and the matter is sub judice,” she said.

Moreover, in a video uploaded by actor-model Sagarika Shona Suman in February, she alleged that she was asked to give her audition via video call where three people, one of them allegedly Kundra, demanded a nude audition from her. Actor Shruti Gera says she was approached in 2018 by a casting director who said Kundra would meet her to discuss his web show. “To imagine that someone like Raj Kundra, Shilpa Shetty’s husband would be doing this. People like him exploit the vulnerability of young females around.”

A college-drop out, Raj Kundra considers his father to be his role model. The latter worked as a bus conductor in London before running small businesses including grocery, post offices and drug stores.

After turning 18, he went to Dubai and later Nepal, from where he sourced pashmina shawls which he sold to famous fashion houses in Britain including Christian Dior and Josephs. He made €20 million in the first year.

Later, he went into diamond trading in Dubai, dabbled in precious metals, construction, mining, green renewable energy projects and financed Hindi films.

A year after his divorce with his first wife Kavita, he met Shilpa Shetty. They got married in 2009.

Raj Kundra’s ex-wife had accused Shilpa Shetty of breaking up their marriage. She claimed her husband had become obsessed with Shilpa and they had started an affair. Recently, he talked about his relationship with Kavita and alleged that she had an affair with his former brother-in-law.

Raj Kundra was also involved in the IPL betting scandal in 2013, and was banned for life from cricket activities. His team Rajasthan Royals was banned for two years.

The home shopping portal owned by him had shut shop all of a sudden in December 2016. While the company cited demagnetization as the reason, vendors said production was stopped almost a week before the note ban announcement. They alleged that the company has defaulted on payments since the beginning of 2016.

In 2018, Enforcement Directorate questioned Kundra in connection with the Gain Bitcoin case where more than 8,000 people were duped of ₹2,000 crore.

Last year, Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra were named in an another scam concerning a gold trading company of which they are ex-directors.