Alia Bhatt’s former personal assistant, Vedika Prakash Shetty, has been arrested for allegedly cheating the Bollywood actor out of nearly Rs 77 lakh over a span of two years.
The 32-year-old woman is accused of misappropriating Rs 76.9 lakh from both Alia’s personal finances and her production company, Eternal Sunshine Productions Private Limited.
The matter came to light after Alia’s mother, actor and filmmaker Soni Razdan, filed a formal complaint with Mumbai’s Juhu police station on January 23, 2025. The case was subsequently registered under charges of cheating and criminal breach of trust.
Vedika, who worked closely with Alia between 2021 and 2024, was responsible for managing her schedule, handling financial paperwork, and overseeing production-related expenses.
According to investigators, she exploited this position of trust to fabricate fake bills and convince the actor to sign off on them, under the guise of professional expenses like travel and meetings.
Sources close to the investigation revealed that Vedika used advanced tools to create convincing fraudulent documents. Once Alia signed these bills, the money would be transferred to a bank account belonging to Vedika’s friend. The funds were then routed back to her.
After the complaint was lodged, Vedika reportedly went into hiding and kept shifting her location across several states - including Rajasthan, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and eventually Bengaluru - making it difficult for police to trace her. She was finally tracked down and arrested in Bengaluru by the Juhu police team and later brought back to Mumbai on a transit remand for further investigation.