The Mahadev Book illegal betting case saw huge development on Tuesday, December 26. In the latest move, the UAE authorities have tightened their watch on the movement of Saurabh Chandrakar, the alleged mastermind. This comes a couple of weeks after another alleged Ravi Uppal was nabbed.
Chandrakar is currently under scrutiny of the authorities, and is, thus, restricted to travel out of Dubai. The ongoing allegations of running an illegal betting syndicate have caused the authorities to take this step against Chandrakar. Notably, both Chandrakar and Uppal are alleged kingpins behind Mahadev Book, an umbrella network of illegal online betting operating through different domains.
The Mahadev case was under the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) investigation for quite some time now. The probe agency had also issued red corner notices against the operatives in coordination with Interpol, according to India Today.
As of now, the government is working officially in Dubai in order to extradite Chandrakar back to India. This is supposed to help ED further in proceeding with the investigation in the matter. It is notable that the estimated proceeds of the crime are Rs 6,000 crore, as per ED.
In another angle to the case, politics and Bollywood involvement has also been noticed during the Mahadev Book probe. Former Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel has been accused of supporting the hawala transactions of the betting operatives. He was also accused of using the monies received through the operatives to fund the recently concluded elections.
Additionally, B-Town celebs like Shraddha Kapoor, Kapil Sharma, Ranbir Kapoor, Huma Qureshi, and Sahil Khan, to name a few, also received ED’s summons for questioning related to either their appearances at Mahadev Book promoter’s private functions or for promoting their illegal betting platform.
Further investigation in the matter is currently ongoing.
