Even though he was cooling his heels inside Tihar jail, greasing some palms ensured that the conman's luxurious lifestyle continued.
These days Sukesh Chandrashekhar's name has been doing the round very frequently. The reason? Sukesh is accused of extorting Rs 200 crore from within the premises of Delhi's famed Tihar jail. Top officials of Tihar jail and five of his aides are among those who have been arrested in this connection. A few days back, Tihar jail had said that around 55 CCTV cameras were installed around Sukesh's barracks to keep an eye on him. However, some moments captured on the same cameras are quite shocking.
Information coming in seems to indicate that at least a dozen jail officials of all ranks were allegedly bribed by Sukesh to allow him to operate his extortion network from the barracks. Reports claim that Sukesh offered them each up to a crore Rupees that allegedly used to be delivered via hawala dealers.
The extent of Sukesh's alleged operation was such that he had an entire barrack all for himself. The walls of the barracks were covered up with bedsheets to blind some of the CCTVs. For a year, the conman allegedly used an iPhone 12 Pro Max and a Samsung smartphone to run his extortion racket. According to officials, the extortion call that went out to Fortis healthcare promoter Shivinder Singh's wife Aditi was made from within the jail premises. Sukesh reportedly used a spoofing app to impersonate a government official and extorted crores of rupees.
Earlier this month, the Delhi Police had charge-sheeted Sukesh, his wife Leena Maria Paul and 12 others in a case in which he has been accused of duping the spouses of former Religare promoters Malvinder and Shivinder Singh. Leena, to recall, was an aspiring model-actor who failed to make it big in the film industry. According to police officials, Maria got involved in Sukesh's crimes for monetary gains. She has also been imprisoned in two cases.
Sukesh had a lavish lifestyle before his arrest. Sukesh, who originally hails from Bengaluru, is currently named in 15 FIRs and has allegedly defrauded people in Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai of several crores. At the time of his arrest, sleuths recovered around 20 luxury vehicles from his farmhouse. It is now emerging that even though he was cooling his heels inside the prison, greasing some palms ensured that the lifestyle continued.
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