New Delhi: Two young men from humble families leave Chhattisgarh for Dubai to escape paying back their loans. Hire programmers. Make a gambling app. Make hundreds of crores. One of them spends lavishly throwing a party of a lifetime for his wedding. And things come tumbling after. The facts of the Mahadev betting app case is fodder for Netflix drama. And now, with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) putting Bollywood actors and singers under the scanner, the drama has its star cast.
Sourabh Chandrakar, the chief protagonist in this drama, spent nearly Rs 200 crore at his wedding in the United Arab Emirates, the ED said and froze Rs 417 crore worth assets after a round of searches in Mumbai, Kolkata and Bhopal.
What is the Mahadev online gambling app case?
The Mahadev online gambling app case deals with the providing of online platforms for illegal betting in different live games like poker, card games, chance games, cricket, badminton, tennis and football betting.
The Enforcement Directorate says its searches were intended to uncover money laundering networks linked with the Mahadev app in cities like Kolkata, Bhopal and Mumbai. The agency said it has seized a large amount of “incriminating evidences”.
According to the ED, the company promoted by Sourabh Chandrakar and a Ravi Uppal from Dubai is an umbrella syndicate that organises online platforms for enabling illegal betting websites. Chandrakar and Uppal allegedly used the online book betting app to enrol new users, creat user IDs and launder money through a layered web of benami bank accounts, according to the ED officials.
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Why are celebrities under the scanner?
Big names, including those of Tiger Shroff and Sunny Leone have cropped up with regard to the case. At least 17 names are said to be on the Enforcement Directorate list, including those of Atif Aslam and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. These actors and singers reportedly travelled to Dubai to partake in the celebration organised by Mahadev promoter Sourabh Chandrakar.
Enforcement Directorate officials have indicated that the celebs may be asked to come in to give their statements. “Wedding planners, dancers, decorators etc were hired from Mumbai and hawala channels were used to make payments in cash . As per digital evidences gathered by the ED, Rs 112 crore was delivered via hawala to an events management company,” the ED said in a press note.
Most of the payments to the celebrities and others were made in cash, the ED said.
