The recent ED raids in Chhattisgarh in connection with Mahadev Book illegal betting app, where state government and police officials are alleged to have been involved, has started a political war between the ruling party and the opposition. BJP State General Secretary, OP Chaudhary, has claimed that underworld don Dawood Ibrahim is patronizing the illegal betting app in concern.
The Congress claims that the BJP is creating roadblocks through these actions for election preparations while the BJP claims that the whole illegal betting operation is providing terrorist funding.
“There are apprehensions that the Mahadev Book app, operated from Dubai, is patronized by the notorious mafia gang D-Company and is being funded through internationally declared terrorist mafia don Dawood (Ibrahim),” said Chaudhary as per ABP Live.
Chaudhary further said that the illegal betting platforms are being operated from Dubai where betting and gambling is illegal. It is not possible for the mastermind Saurabh Chandrakar and his partner Ravi Uppal (Reddy Anna) to operate without the support of external parties. With this, he linked the whole operation to the notorious mafia gang D-Company.
Chaudhary further claimed that there are over 50 lakh users on Mahadev Book and its counterpart Reddy Anna with more than Rs 1000 crore being laundered overseas. As per reports, transactions worth over Rs 5000 crore were done in a span of one year on these illegal betting apps.
The police have arrested over 500 people and frozen over 20,000 corporate, current, and savings bank accounts containing hundreds of crores of rupees. Moreover, it has come to light that 250 shell companies have been used to route the money.
Meanwhile, Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel held a press conference in New Delhi on Thursday, August 24 where he questioned the government and ED’s intentions. He accused the investigation agency of being partial and the Central government of trying to gain political advantage for the upcoming elections by misusing the ED.
Chaudhary questioned CM Baghel for not taking any action earlier and claimed that the Congress started the operations to extort money through the Mahadev Book illegal betting app and make the local operators the scapegoat.
Notably, the ED raids earlier this week led to the arrests of ASI Chandrabhushan Verma, Satish Chandrakar and hawala operators Anil Damani and Sunil Damani along with CM Baghel’s political advisor Vinod Verma. It has been revealed that ASI Verma used to collect Rs 65 crore as bribe every month which he distributed among other senior officials who are allegedly involved in this scam.