Leena Maria Paul — from a small-time heroine to a high-level racketeer

Chennai: The model-turned-film actress, Leena Maria Paul, has always been in the news for the wrong reasons.

From her very short film career to her association with fraudster Sukesh Chandrashekhar, alias Balaji, from an accused in various cheating cases to being a target of underworld don Ravi Poojara's gang in 2017 shootout at her beauty parlour, Leena made her presence felt.

Now, the inquiry into the cheating case to the tune of Rs.200 crore, involving Sukesh at the time of his stay in Tihar Jail, has now reached the doorstep of Leena.

Arrested in 2017, Sukesh is currently languishing in Rohini Jail in Delhi.

16 luxury cars, posh beachfront bungalow confiscated

Leena has to her credit assets which even frontline heroines in Malayalam and other film industries do not have. She, along with Sukesh, owns a posh beachfront bungalow in Chennai.

It is valued at a minimum price of Rs.15 crore. It is alleged that the duo cornered this house by using ill-gotten money raised through Benami deals.

She lives there with aides and security guards, who are in attendance round the clock.

She was questioned for hours by the Enforcement Directorate the other day to trace the exact source of money which she is getting even after Sukesh's arrest and subsequent jailing.

The ED has confiscated her bungalow, 6 luxury cars, 2 kilos of gold, Rs.82.50 lakh in cash and a number of expensive bags and shoes from her house.

Ferrari 458 Italia, Mercedes AMG 63, Lamborghini Uru, Escalade, Roll Royce Ghost and Bentley Bentayga were some of the cars seized from her.

Even bags worth 40,000 dollars (Rs.29.6 lakh) were also seized.

Sukesh, the kingpin

Sukesh began the extortion business when he was just 17-year-old.

Now, he is 31 and by this time, he has been slapped with almost 20 extortion cases.

By using red beacon lights in his car, he made others believe that he was the son of the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

He also extracted almost Rs 75 crore from businessmen by impressing that he is a close relative of a politician sitting at the helm of the Bangalore Development Authority.

Charming and soft-spoken, Sukesh used to lure people easily at the first meeting itself.

Leena was first arrested along with Sukesh in 2013 for cheating the Canara Bank, Ambattur branch, near Chennai, of Rs 19 crore and for extorting money worth Rs 76 lakh from a businessman by impersonating as an IAS officer.

About nine luxury vehicles and revolvers were then seized from them. They continued with their extortion racket even after being out on bail.

Another case was that Sukesh took Rs 50 crore from former AIADMK leader TTV Dinakaran on the pretext of bribing the Election Commission officials for allotting AIADMK's two leaves symbol for Dinakaran's party.

Leena's house was searched the other day on the basis of the information received from the arrested manager of the RBL Bank, Komal Poddar, in connection with this case.

Dental student ended up as an extortion queen

The life story of Leena Maria Paul has all the turns and twists of a popular movie.

When she was first caught by the Chennai Police, she gave an address of a place in Thrissur district.

Later, it was found that she belonged to Kottayam. She studied in Dubai.

Her plan was to complete her BDS course and to become a dentist.

But she later ended up becoming a model and film actress.

In her short career in the tinsel world, she acted in movies such as Red Chillies, Madras Cafe, Kobra and Husbands in Goa.

Soon came her association with Sukesh, which made her a full-time accomplice of him in cheating and extortion cases.

Her beauty parlour business was based in Kochi.

She was also alleged to have spoken to some people in Kerala who have been monitored by the security agencies for their extremist connections.

Leena was in the news when underworld don Ravi Poojari's team went on a shooting spree at her beauty parlour. Poojari's team tried to target her on the assumption that she became the custodian of assets worth crores of rupees after Sukesh was jailed.

Sukesh's Tihar jail operations

By using the phones of Tihar jail staff, Sukesh used to pose as government officials and used to extort money from businessmen.

This was done after getting details from the government advertisements and tenders about various multi-crore projects that appeared in the newspapers.

He used number spoofing through Apps to impersonate high-ranking government officials.

Sukesh would call to strike a deal and the victims would see the numbers on their phone screen as desired by him.

He used to call companies by duping as an IAS officer-in-charge of a particular project and then offer contracts.

He used to first warn them of prosecution proceedings and then offer them help to get rid of cases in exchange for money.