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By India Today News Desk: How far would anyone go for revenge? How Bollywood actress Chrisann Pereira was framed is a scary example. And it was all planned and executed by Mumbai baker Anthony Paul.
Chrisann Pereira was arrested in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on charges of drug possession and lodged at a jail in Sharjah. But after revelations by Mumbai Police, the actress was on Wednesday night released by law enforcement authorities in Sharjah, a senior Mumbai Police official told PTI on Thursday.
Two men had allegedly cheated the 27-year-old actor, who is from Mumbai, by planting drugs on her and sending her to Sharjah under the pretext of an ‘audition’ with the promise that she would get a role in a Hollywood web series.
The key accused was identified as Anthony Paul. He plotted and executed the plan with the help of his accomplice, Rajesh Babhote.
Officials also discovered that Paul had also framed four other people, like Chrisann, in a similar manner. The Bollywood actress was, in fact, his fifth known victim.
Who is Anthony Paul and why did he frame Chrisann Pereira? What happened to the others?
WHO’S ANTHONY PAUL?
According to the police, Anthony Paul is a resident of Borivali in Mumbai and is a baker by profession.
He finished his schooling at Mira Road and completed his junior college at St Andrew’s College, Bandra.
In 2006, Paul went to Melbourne, Australia, to study management in hospitality and stayed there until 2012.
Anthony Paul often used to contact families and extract money from them after framing people into drug cases and getting them arrested. He also used to give information to authorities about his target passengers carrying drugs.
After Chrisann Pareira was arrested in Sharjah, Paul convinced her mother that he had contacts in Sharjah.
Paul convinced Pareira’s mother to arrange a lawyer for her and demanded Rs 80 lakh from her.
According to a crime branch officer, Paul and his associate Rajesh Babhote alias Ravi had started a fisheries unit together.
Babhote is a deputy general manager with IDBI Bank and was to receive nearly Rs 15 lakh from Paul.
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During investigations, Babhote said he was not aware of Paul’s plans to plant narcotics on his victims and then send them to Sharjah under the pretext of getting them work opportunities there.
Babhote said he only helped Paul so that he could get his money back from him.
HOW DID CHRISANN PAREIRA GET JAILED?
Pereira, who acted in Mahesh Bhatt-directed Bollywood movie ‘Sadak 2’, was apprehended at the Sharjah airport on April 1 after a small quantity of a drug was found concealed in a trophy that Anthony Paul had given to her to hand over to someone in the UAE.
A little before she boarded the flight, she was given a trophy stuffed with drugs – the same trophy that one of Paul’s other victims had refused to carry.
Chrisann was told that the trophy was part of the audition prop. When Crisann reached Sharjah on April 1, she checked with the hotel there to confirm her booking but found out that her name was not mentioned in the hotel’s record of bookings.
She then approached police authorities with the trophy. The drugs were found inside the trophy and she was detained, and later arrested.
Paul also reportedly had a grouse with Chrisann’s mother and hence, he hatched a plan to frame her daughter promising her an audition for an international web series in Sharjah.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FOUR OTHER VICTIMS?
In the five cases known till now, Paul reportedly sought revenge for reasons like a break-up, jealousy, work-related issues, and a fight over Covid protocols, according to a media report.
Paul succeeded in two cases — of Pereira and Clayton Rodrigues.
While Crishann has walked free, Clayton Rodrigues is still in a jail in the UAE.
He was given a drug-laced cake by Anthony Paul and his associate, who then called up law enforcement officials. Rodrigues was arrested.
The reason, Rodrigues was friends with a woman who was also close to Anthony Paul.
Earlier in January, Paul had tried to get a fashion designer, framed similarly in drug-smuggling charges and jailed in Sharjah. The two had recently broken up.
Paul told her that a fashion designer was needed for a big event and got her tickets to the UAE. On the day of her flight, he gave her a drug-laced cake but the woman got suspicious and threw it away at Mumbai airport.
In March, Paul tried to get a 21-year-old Borivali resident arrested after a fallout with his father. Paul gave him a trophy, with drugs concealed in it, to be given to someone in Sharjah. The youngster got lucky as he too, like the fashion designer, dumped the trophy at the airport.
Paul tried the same trick with another person, a 35-year-old, by buying him tickets to Sharjah and asking him to carry a trophy. That too was over an enmity with the person’s father who worked at Paul’s bakery. The 35-year-old was saved as he refused to carry the trophy, which obviously would have drugs concealed in it.
This was the same trophy that Chrisann Pareira, his fifth and latest victim, carried with her to Sharjah and was jailed for.
The Mumbai Police, after finding out how drugs were planted on the Bollywood actress, sent the case-related documents to the authorities concerned in the UAE. Chrisann Pereira was released on Wednesday night.
Pereira is likely to return to Mumbai in a day or two.
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