Tyson payment: Enforcement Directorate grills Puri Jagannadh, Charmee | Hyderabad News

HYDERABAD: Enforcement Directorate sleuths on Thursday questioned Tollywood director Puri Jagannadh and producer Charmee Kaur on their source of income for producing the movie, ‘Liger’, which involved mega shoots in Las Vegas and payments to former boxing champion Mike Tyson, who starred in the film. The high-budget movie had actors Vijay Devarakonda and Ananya Pandya in lead roles.
ED served notices under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) to Puri and Charmee, who were grilled for more than 12 hours. Sources said, apart from movie funding, high-value payments made in foreign currency to technical crew and foreign actors, including Mike Tyson, at Las Vegas has come under ED scrutiny.

The agency also questioned Puri on his next Devarakonda-starrer – Jana Gana Mana. Puri and Charmee produced documents on their source of funding, but are yet to produce key papers sought by investigators.
The duo told ED they suffered losses in producing ‘Liger’, which did not do well at the box office. “We are only looking at FEMA violations, not into an income tax angle,” said an ED official. Puri and Charmi were earlier investigated by SIT in a 2017 drugs case and again last year by ED, but were given clean chit by Rangareddy court in 2021 due to lack of evidence.
On September 5, Congress leader Bakka Judson filed a complaint with ED, alleging CM KCR’s daughter Kalvakuntla Kavitha had invested in ‘Liger’.