Mahadev app: ED attaches Rs 1,700 cr worth assets including in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday said it attached fresh immovable assets worth about Rs 1,700 crore, majorly located in Dubai, including in the iconic Burj Khalifa, belonging to one of the main promoters of the Mahadev App, Sourabh Chandrakar, as part of its money laundering investigation.
The federal probe agency has said that the case involves various high-ranking politicians and bureaucrats from Chhattisgarh.
A provisional order was issued by the Raipur zonal office of the federal agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Wednesday to attach 18 “high-value” luxury villas and apartments in Dubai Hills Estate, including in Hills View, Fairway Residency and Sidra, the agency said in a statement.
It added that multiple “high-end” apartments in Business Bay and SLS Hotel & Residences, apart from apartments in Burj Khalifa, have also been attached. The Burj Khalifa is the world’s tallest building at 829.8 metres. Two immovable properties located in Delhi have also been attached under the said order. All these assets have a fair market value of about Rs 1,700 crore, it said.
“The properties belong to Sourabh Chandrakar, one of the main promoters of the Mahadev Online Book betting application and held in the name of entities controlled by him, his associates, including Vikas Chhaparia, Rohit Gulati, Atul Arora, Nitin Tibrewal, Surendra Bagri,” the ED said.
The Mahadev app was co-promoted by Chandrakar and his associate Ravi Uppal, both of whom hail from Chhattisgarh. India is pursuing their extradition. While the last known location of Chandrakar was in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Uppal is stated to have fled to Vanuatu from the UAE.
The ED alleged these properties were acquired from the “proceeds of crime” generated from illegal online betting operations in the name of the Mahadev Online Book platform and several others.
Properties have been attached in this case earlier too, and with the latest order, the total value of the attachment stands at Rs 4,336 crore. The agency has said in the past that the total “illegal” monies generated in this case at about Rs 6,000 crore.
The Mahadev App, according to the ED, operated as a large-scale international betting syndicate which 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’ and ‘branches’ operated by associates across India, while the main promoters Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal operated and controlled the betting syndicate from Dubai, it said.
The agency had arrested 13 people as part of this investigation, naming a total of 74 entities as accused in the five chargesheets it has filed before a special PMLA court in Raipur till now.
It has also moved a court seeking a fugitive economic offender (under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018) tag for Chandrakar, Uppal and others named in the case, like Anil Agrawal alias Atul and Shubham Soni.
