Bhupesh Baghel, the senior Congress leader, along with the app promoters Ravi Uppal, Saurabh Chandrakar, Shubham Soni and Anil Kumar Agrawal and 14 others have been named as accused in the FIR, officials said.
Raipur:
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in Chhattisgarh has registered a case against former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and others in the alleged Mahadev online betting scam based on a probe report submitted by the ED, officials said on Sunday.The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which has been investigating the Mahadev app-linked money laundering case for more than a year, alleged in the past that its probe has shown involvement of various high-ranking politicians and bureaucrats from Chhattisgarh, where the two main promoters of the app hail from.The projected proceeds of crime in this case are about ₹ 6,000 crore, according to the ED.
“The ED has been investigating the case and based on its report submitted to the state’s Economic Offences Wing/Anti-Corruption Bureau, the FIR was registered against Baghel and others at the EOW police station here on March 4,” a senior EOW official said.Baghel, the senior Congress leader, along with the app promoters Ravi Uppal, Saurabh Chandrakar, Shubham Soni and Anil Kumar Agrawal and 14 others have been named as accused in the FIR, he said.Some bureaucrats, police officials, officers on special duty (OSDs) and other unidentified private persons have also been made accused (without being named) in the case, he said.The case has been registered under various Indian Penal Code Sections, including 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document), and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018, the official said.The FIR, citing the ED’s report, stated that Mahadev Book App promoters Uppal, Chandrakar, Soni and Agrawal created the platform for live online betting and indulged in betting through Whatsapp, Facebook and Telegram and other social media platforms.The promoters created different platforms and conducted illegal acts of online betting through panel operators/ branch operators. They kept 70 to 80 per cent of the illegal earnings with them and distributed the rest of the money to panel operators/ branch operators, it alleged.The promoters and panel operators fetched around ₹ 450 crore per month through the online betting app after the lockdown was imposed in 2020 (following the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic), the FIR claimed.For transaction of the illegally obtained money, bank accounts were opened on the basis of fake documents by the promoters and panel operators of the Mahadev Book App and hundreds of bank accounts were operated on the basis of commission with the money obtained from betting. The panel operators transferred illegal money to the promoters in the UAE through various bank accounts, it said.A huge amount of money was spent by the app promoters for advertising betting websites. For this, annual star-studded events were also organised, in which celebrities were involved by paying them illegal money obtained from betting, the FIR said.The illegal money obtained from online betting by the app promoters has been invested in many companies, shell companies, stock market and crypto currency, it said.