Ex-staffer of Alia Bhatt’s co held for stealing 76.9L via forged invoices | Mumbai News

Mumbai: A dismissed secretary of a production house co-owned by actor Alia Bhatt and her mother Soni Razdan was arrested in Bengaluru on Tuesday for allegedly forging fake invoices and siphoning off Rs 76.9 lakh from the company’s accounts in two years. She had been caught earlier by Razdan for allegedly stealing electronic items and gift cards given to Bhatt by event organisers.Juhu police nabbed Vedhika Shetty (32), who worked with the Juhu-based company from 2021-24, from her sister’s home in Bengaluru after allegedly hiding out in Mangaluru, Rajasthan and Pune. She was brought to Mumbai and remanded in police custody till Thursday. A sessions court had rejected her bail plea in May and Bombay HC denied her interim relief the following month.The company conducted an internal audit of its accounts following a tipoff in Oct 2024. Shetty was sacked soon after. The FIR, based on Razdan’s complaint, was filed in Jan this year. A police officer said on learning about the FIR, Shetty went into hiding. She was tracked down based on her social media updates and the five SIMs she used in an attempt to thwart police.Police said after being caught stealing Bhatt’s gifts in Oct 2022, she offered an apology and promised to mend her ways, owing to which the actor and her mother decided to let her stay on in the company and didn’t lodge a police complaint. But neither of them knew that she had also been allegedly stealing money through forged invoices since May that year. “Shetty used to get the fake invoices approved by Bhatt. The money was transferred to the bank accounts of Shetty’s friends before being sent to her. One transaction was also made to a person’s Dubai account,” the officer said.TOI reached out to Razdan via calls and messages but received no response.