Film distribution executivess arrested in piracy racket

Two top executives associated with film distribution companies Reliance Big Pictures and Shemaroo Pictures were arrested by the crime branch of Mumbai police on Wednesday.

They are allegedly involved in the movie piracy racket, which have links to Pakistan. The police have nabbed eight persons, so far, in this case.

The arrested duo has been identified as Neerav Shah, 30, manager, overseas distribution of Reliance Big Pictures, and Kalapi Nagda, 29, head of overseas distribution, Shemaroo Pictures. The police recovered a DVD print of Bollywood movie Fast Forward (scheduled to be released on Friday) from the duo.

Two months ago, the police had formed a special squad within the social service branch to find the major players in the piracy racket and understand their modus operandi.

“These two were also involved in the racket and used to take DVDs from Rajesh Harkishan Chaudhary, associate vice-president of UFO Digital Mastering,” said Rakesh Maria, joint commissioner of police, crime.

“Chaudhary gives the DVD to Neerav, who then gives it to Kalapi who provides them to the middlemen from where it is finally delivered in Pakistan to a man named Zubair. This has been going on for the past three months,” added Maria.

Neerav worked with Shemaroo Pictures for six years, where he got in touch with Kalapi. He moved to Reliance Big Pictures two years ago. “They receive their money through hawala channels from Zubair,” said Maria.

“Chaudhary was caught on Tuesday and was remanded to police custody till September 26,” said Ansaar Peerzade, senior inspector. Chaudhary has been dismissed from his post in UFO Digital.

The police had earlier arrested Afsar alias Ashraf Haider Hussain, Firoz alias Sameer Irfan Khan, both Mumbra residents; Aman alias Tanzeem Ali Hameed Ali, a Kherwadi resident; and Durgadas Bhakta, a business development manager at Adlabs in Goregaon Film City.