London: Former Indian Sikh model Gurpreet Gill Maag has sued IPL founder Lalit Modi in the London high court for £5 million. Maag, now a Singapore-based venture capitalist, claims she was scammed by Lalit, 56, who lives in London, alleging he duped her into thinking royals and world leaders such as Prince Andrew, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and former Thailand PM Thaksin Shinawatra had invested in his cancer treatment company Ion Care.
Maag alleges that Lalit persuaded her to invest £1.4 million in Ion Care and is claiming direct losses of £700,000 - which she did invest - and consequential losses. Ion Care was dissolved in June 2019. Maag claims she was persuaded to invest $2 million in the company during a four-hour meeting she had with Lalit between April 13 and 14, 2018 at the Four Seasons hotel in Dubai alongside her husband Daniel and that they were given a slide presentation.
Maag’s case is that Lalit falsely claimed that patrons of the Ion Care cancer scheme included Prince Andrew, King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain and Princess Haya bint Hussein of Jordan. She alleges the presentation showed that prominent investors of the scheme included former Pakistan PM Shaukat Aziz, Antigua PM Gaston Browne, Indian politician Sharad Pawar, CEO of Pirelli Marco Tronchetti, billionaire Ravi Jaipuria and deputy PM of the UAE Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, who had allegedly invested $100 million.
Judge Murray Rosen QC asked whether these well-known political figures knew their names were being talked about, Anna Dilnot QC, representing Maag, said that world leaders were unaware of their names being misused.
