The Enforcement Directorate has attached immovable assets worth about ₹1,700 crore in Dubai, including some apartments in Burj Khalifa, in connection with its ongoing money laundering case linked to the promotion of the Mahadev online betting app.
Some of the attached properties include apartments inside the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, sources said.
The attached properties belong to Sourabh Chandrakar, one of the main promoters of the Mahadev online betting application, and his associates Vikas Chhaparia, Rohit Gulati, Atul Arora, Nitin Tibrewal and Surendra Bagri, the agency said.
The case also involves various high-ranking politicians and bureaucrats from Chhattisgarh.
The 18 attached properties are located in Dubai, UAE, and include high-value luxury villas, apartments in Dubai Hills Estate such as Hills View, Fairway Residency and Sidra, multiple high-end
apartments in Business Bay and SLS Hotel & Residences and apartments in the iconic Burj Khalifa.
An ED probe has revealed that the properties were acquired from the proceeds of crime generated by the commission of scheduled offences related to illegal
online betting operations in the name of Mahadev Online Book platform and several others.
The agency had started a probe based on multiple FIRs registered by police authorities in Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh under various sections of the IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act against people related to illegal online betting platforms like Mahadev Online Book, Skyexchange, as well as government officials.
Mahadev Online Book operated as a large-scale international betting syndicate that facilitated illegal betting through multiple online platforms and domain names such as Tiger Exchange, Gold365 and Laser247.
“The operation was structured through a franchise-based network of panels or branches operated by associates across India, while the main promoters Sourabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal operated and controlled the betting syndicate from Dubai,” the ED said.
Both Chandrakar and Uppal are from Chhattisgarh and India is pursuing their extradition. Sources said the last known location of Chandrakar was in the UAE, while Uppal was said to have fled to Vanuatu from the UAE.
Chandrakar and others allegedly “cheated” people through the Mahadev app that was created to facilitate multiple illegal betting websites or mobile applications to acquire customers and take care of the financial operations for these illegal betting games and websites.
So far, the ED has conducted search operations at more than 175 premises across the country in connection with this case and arrested 13 people. A total of 74 people have been arraigned as accused in the five charge-sheets filed by the agency. The total attachment, seizure, freezing of movable and immovable properties in the case stands at ₹4,336 crore.