The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday filed a charge sheet in connection with the Mahadev online betting app case. According to the officials, 14 accused have been named in the charge sheet. These names include Vikas Chhapariya, Ravi Uppal, Sourabh Chandrakar, Satish Chandrakar, Vishal Ahuja, Chandrabhushan Verma, Anil Dammani, Sunil Dammani, Dheeraj Ahuja, Shiv Kumar Verma, Punaram Verma, Shiv Kumar Verma, Yashoda Verma and Pawan Nathani.
The next hearing in the case is on Nov 25
"ED has filed a charge sheet in the Mahadev app case at PMLA court Raipur on October 20, 2023. 14 accused have been named in the prosecution complaint," the central agency said in a statement. The next hearing in the case is posted on November 25, 2023. According to the statement, no celebrity has been accused in the prosecution complaint. Notably, this comes just a day after Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Bhupesh Baghel slammed the Centre, raising concerns about whether the government had accepted election funding in exchange for not outlawing the betting app.
"The central government has the authority to put a ban on the betting app, not the state government. My allegation is that if you (referring to the BJP-led government at the centre) are not imposing a ban on the application, so have you accepted the fund for elections," Baghel told news agency ANI.
Mahadev Online Book Betting app
The Mahadev Online Book Betting app is an umbrella syndicate arranging online platforms for enabling illegal betting websites to enrol new users, create user IDs, and launder money through a layered web of Benami bank accounts.
Earlier in mid-September this year, the ED released details of its investigation into the online money laundering case linked with the Mahadev Online Book Betting app. Wedding planners, dancers, decorators etc, were hired from Mumbai and hawala channels were used to make payments in cash, the agency had said. The agency said Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal who hail from Bhilai in Chhattisgarh are the two main promoters of the Mahadev betting platform and ran their operations from Dubai. They had created an empire for themselves in that country.
ED conducted searches at several places
The agency had recently conducted searches at 39 locations across Raipur, Bhopal, Mumbai and Kolkata and seized illegal assets worth Rs 417 crore. ED has also earnestly taken up investigation abroad. A Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) special court at Raipur has also issued non-bailable warrants against the suspects.
(With ANI inputs)
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