Sources in the Enforcement Directorate have revealed that several Bollywood actors and singers were paid to attend the wedding of Mahadev Book app promoter Sourabh Chandrakar in the UAE in February. The agency is probing the online betting company and its promoters.
Listen to Story
Advertisement
Tiger Shroff and Sunny Leone were among the celebrities who attended the wedding of Mahadev Book app promoter in UAE in February, according to the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The betting platform and the promoters are being probed by the ED.
Mumbai , UPDATED: Sep 15, 2023 17:46 IST
Several actors and singers from Bollywood attended the wedding ceremony of Mahadev Book app promoter, Sourabh Chandrakar, in the UAE, said sources in the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The central agency is probing the online betting platform and its promoters. Chandrakar, one of the two promoters of Mahadev Book app, got married in February in the UAE. The wedding was attended by Bollywood bigwigs, including Tiger Shroff and Sunny Leone.
advertisement
Popular singers, including Neha Kakkar, performed at the wedding ceremony.
Others who were present at the ceremony and named by the ED sources included Atif Aslam, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Ali Asgar, Vishal Dadlani, Tiger Shroff, Elli AvrRam, Bharti Singh, Sunny Leone, Bhagyashree, Kriti Kharbanda, Nushrratt Bharuccha and Krushna Abhishek.
Celebrities can be seen in a video said to be of Sourabh Chandrakar’s wedding.
Sources with the ED said actors and singers were invited in return for a fee paid to them by a Mumbai-based event company.
The sources also said other promoters of the Mahadev app spent nearly Rs 200 crore in cash on Chandrakar’s wedding, as private jets were hired to ferry family members from Nagpur to the UAE. Mahadev Book app, an online betting platform, is being probed by the ED and police departments of several states. As per the digital evidence gathered by the Enforcement Directorate, Rs 112 crore was delivered via hawala to an event management company, while payment for hotel bookings, costing Rs 42 crore was made in cash, the sources said.
ED SEIZES ASSETS WORTH Rs 417 CRORE
This came even as the ED froze and seized assets worth Rs 417 crore in connection with the Mahadev online betting case, after it raided offices of eight cash courier units (Angadias), officials told news agency PTI on Friday. The company promoted by Sourabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal, which was running operations from Dubai, was allegedly using the online book betting application to enrol new users, create user IDs and launder money through a layered web of benami bank accounts, they alleged.
The duo, who started their operations as local bookies running small juice and tyre shops, have reportedly amassed a fortune of over Rs 6,000 crore from the Mahadev Book app. “The ED has recently conducted widespread searches against the money laundering networks linked with Mahadev app in cities like Kolkata, Bhopal, Mumbai etc. and retrieved a large amount of incriminating evidence and has frozen/seized proceeds of crime worth Rs 417 crore,” the agency has alleged in a statement. The ED investigation has shown that Mahadev Online Book App is run from a central head office in the UAE, officials said. It operates by franchising “Panel/Branches” to their known associates on 70-30 per cent profit ratio, the ED said. Large scale hawala operations are done to siphon off the proceeds of betting to off-shore accounts. Large expenditure in cash is also being done in India for advertising of betting websites to attract new users and franchise (panel) seekers, it said. The company promoters hail from Bhilai in Chhattisgarh and the Mahadev Online Book Betting application is an umbrella syndicate arranging online platforms for enabling illegal betting websites. As part of its probe into the Mahadev Book app case, the ED had earlier arrested four people, including a police assistant sub-inspector with alleged connections to Chhattisgarh Chief Minister’s political advisor.