Elvish Yadav again questioned by ED in money laundering case
Popular YouTuber and Bigg Boss OTT 2 winner Elvish Yadav was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED)on Thursday in connection with a money laundering case linked to a snake venom-rave party incident.
Elvish Yadav was questioned by ED sleuths at its unit based in Uttar Pradesh’s capital Lucknow.
The ED last questioned Elvish Yadav in July. He was questioned for nearly seven hours by officials of the central agency’s Lucknow unit.
The ED had registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering (PMLA) Act in the snake venom incident considering the significant amount of money involved in the racket in May this year.
Earlier, Yadav was arrested on March 17 and sent to 14-day judicial custody. He was, however, granted bail by a local court five days later.
The case against Elvish Yadav
The controversial 26-year-old YouTuber, also the winner of reality show Bigg Boss OTT 2, was booked under various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, Wildlife Protection Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC) by Noida Police.
Yadav was among the six people named in an FIR lodged at Noida’s Sector 49 police station on November 3 last year on a complaint from a representative of animal rights NGO People for Animals (PFA). The five other accused, all snake charmers, were arrested in November and they were later given bail by a local court.
While Yadav had refuted the charges against him as “baseless and fake”, police later dropped charges under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act against him, stating that it was a “mistake” on their part.
After his questioning in July, an unidentified official had said that the agency was not satisfied with his replies and were likely to question him further after collecting more details about snake charmers and others.
The official had said Elvish Yadav’s close associate and Haryana singer Rahul Yadav, who is popular as Fazilpuriya, was questioned for multiple hours at ED Lucknow office on July 8.