Kedarnath Producer Prerna Arora Charged With Money Laundering By ED In An Alleged Fraud Case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has registered a case of money laundering against film producer Prerna Arora. She reportedly faces fraud charges of Rs 31 Crore. Prerna was summoned on Wednesday. However, she failed to make an appearance in the court citing that she is out of Mumbai for some official work.

Her lawyer Vivek Wasvani reached the ED office on her behalf and sought time for her.

A tweet by the news agency ANI read, "The money laundering case against Bollywood producer Prerna Arora is of ₹31 crores... ED summoned her today but she did not appear as she is not in Mumbai. On her behalf, her lawyer reached the ED office and sought time."

Speaking about the fraud case, in 2018, Prerna who was then the director of motion picture production house, KriArj Entertainment Private Limited, was arrested by officers of the Economics Offences Wing (EOW) for allegedly cheating film producer Vashu Bhagnani of Rs 31.6 Crore. She was booked under sections 420 (cheating) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.

As per a report in Hindustan Times in 2018, Prerna along with other accused KriArj co-owners Arjun N Kapoor and Pratima Arora allegedly induced Vashu to provide finance for the films, Pad Man and Kedarnath.

They reportedly promised him the first claim on the post-release revenue when they had already sold the rights to other financial organisations. Vashu claimed that Prerna's company concealed this fact from him and failed to return the money because of which he ended up facing a loss of Rs 31.6 Crore as per the case documents.

Nagesh Vaidikar, production manager at Puja Films had registered a complaint with the EOW on behalf of Bhagnani.

Talking about Prerna Arora, she is known for producing films like Kedarnath, Toilet Ek Prem Katha and Pad Man, among others.