File photograph of YouTuber Elvish Yadav being produced in a court docket, in Gurugram.
| Photo Credit: PTI
The Enforcement Directorate has filed a money laundering case against YouTuber Siddharth Yadav alias Elvish Yadav and a few others underneath the cost of suspected use of snake venom as a leisure drug in events he hosted, official sources mentioned Saturday.
The central company has pressed prices underneath the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after taking cognisance of a FIR and cost sheet filed by the Gautam Buddh Nagar (Noida) district police in Uttar Pradesh final month against him and different linked to him.
The alleged technology of proceeds of crime and use of illicit funds for organising rave or leisure events is underneath the scanner of the ED.
Yadav and a few others linked to the case will likely be questioned as a part of the investigation, the sources mentioned.
Yadav was arrested on March 17 by the Noida Police in reference to its probe into suspected use of snake venom as a leisure drug in events that have been allegedly hosted by him.
The 26-year-old YouTuber, additionally the winner of actuality present Bigg Boss OTT 2, was booked underneath varied sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, Wildlife Protection Act, and the Indian Penal Code (IPC) by the Noida police.
Yadav was among the many six folks named in an FIR lodged at Noida’s Sector 49 Police Station on November three final yr on a grievance from a consultant of animal rights NGO People for Animals (PFA).
The 5 different accused, all snake charmers, have been arrested in November and have been later set free on bail by a neighborhood court docket.
The 5 snake charmers have been arrested from a banquet corridor in Noida on November three final yr and 9 snakes, together with 5 cobras, have been rescued from their possession, whereas 20 ml of suspected snake venom was additionally seized.
According to police, Yadav was not current on the banquet corridor then.
In April, the Noida Police filed an over 1,200-page cost sheet within the case.
The prices included are snake trafficking, use of psychotropic substances and organising rave events, the police had mentioned.