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Sharapova
travelled to India in 2012 to launch the luxury high-rise complex
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Five-time Grand Slam
champion Maria Sharapova is under investigation in India for cheating and
criminal conspiracy after the collapse of a luxury housing project that she
endorsed, police and a lawyer said Tuesday.
AFP
report continues:
The
firm behind the development is alleged to have taken millions of dollars from
homebuyers before the project folded.
"We
have registered a case of cheating on directions from the court," local
police officer Arvind Sharma told AFP.
He
said Sharapova and the firm behind the development, Homestead Infrastructure
Development, were named in the case.
The
30-year-old tennis star travelled to India in 2012 to launch the luxury
high-rise apartment complex -- later named Ballet by Sharapova -- which
prospective buyers were told would house a tennis academy, a clubhouse and a
helipad.
The
website of the project quotes Sharapova as saying her goal was to "make
the owners feel like they own something special and different".
"Any
celebrity who endorses any product technically becomes an agent for that company.
No one would have invested in the project if Sharapova's name was not
there," said Piyush Singh, a lawyer representing the complainant.
The
project in Gurgaon -- a satellite city of the capital New Delhi -- was supposed
to be ready in 2016 but, Singh said, construction work was abandoned after
builders collected millions from homebuyers.
Calls
to the developers went unanswered. Sharapova has not yet commented on the case.
Sharapova,
a former world number one, made almost US$30 million in 2015, according to
Forbes, with US$23 million of that coming from endorsements.
She
has had a stop-start season since her controversial return to the game in
April, following a 15-month doping ban.
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