Sourabh Chandrakar – a primary accused in the Rs 5,000-crore Mahdev app betting case – will be extradited from the UAE and brought to India within a week, sources told NDTV Friday.
The extradition process – greenlit by UAE authorities after the External Affairs Ministry intervened on behalf of the probe agency – is in the final stages, sources also said.
Chandrakar – who operated a juice shop in Chhattisgarh’s Bhilai before rising to head an alleged international betting syndicate – has been in police custody in the UAE since December.
He was detained in Dubai – and put under house arrest – based on an Interpol Red Corner Notice. His associate Ravi Uppal had been detained, also in Dubai, a few weeks earlier.
According to the ED Chandrakar and Uppal ran the Mahadev network – which allegedly included a nexus of police, bureaucrats, and politicians to shield the illegal activities – from Dubai.
Call centres were opened across Malaysia, Thailand, and India, and also in the UAE, through which illegal betting was conducted by creating an entire ecosystem of interlinked mobile apps.
The ED has claimed the network consisted of around 4,000 ‘panel operators’, based across different states in India, with handling around 200 customers placing bets. Using this method, the two made at least Rs 200 crore daily, and managed to build a criminal empire in the UAE.
In September last year the ED seized assets worth Rs 417 crore from raids in 39 locations in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Bhopal; the network’s India operation was run with help from two other associates of Chandrakar – Anil and Sunil Dammani. The former was also tasked with paying off cops, bureaucrats, and politicians with the illegally acquired money to buy their silence.
One of those ‘protectors’ named by the ED is Chandra Bhushan Verma, a former senior member of the Chhattisgarh Police department, who was paid via money routed from the UAE.
The money was passed through a jeweller in the state capital of Raipur.
During interrogation Anil Dammani said his brother and he, over the previous 24-36 months, passed nearly Rs 65 crore in illegal money through their hawala network. His cut was Rs 6 lakh.
It also emerged that the police officer, Verma, had direct links with the then Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s political advisor, Vinod Verma, which helped keep a tab on the cops.
This also led to the Congress leader becoming mired in a corruption case; this was after a man claiming to be the ‘real owner’ of the Mahadev app alleged he gave Mr Baghel Rs 508 crore.
The ED claimed a link between the man – Shubham Soni – and Bhupesh Baghel after it seized Rs 5.39 crore, in cash, from a hawala courier called Asim Das. In March – weeks before the Lok Sabha election – Chhattisgarh Police filed a FIR against Mr Baghel and 18 others.
Mr Baghel denied all charges, saying, “The FIR is politically motivated, I was deliberately implicated under pressure. It was done due to political vendetta.” He also claimed ED action against him was on instructions from the BJP; the ED reports to the central government.
He also claimed the Congress government had, in fact, identified Chandrakar and Uppal as the betting syndicate bosses and issued a notice, and that since they were not in state jurisdiction, it was the central government’s responsibility to track down and apprehend them.
The Chandrakar and Uppal (and Mahadev app) story reportedly began with the two becoming addicted to online gambling. This prompted the two to gather their savings for a gambling spree in Dubai. Once there they met a sheikh and a Pakistani national, and hatched this plan.
Sourabh Chandrakar also reportedly roped his brother, Satish, into the crime, putting him in charge of running four call centres and giving him a five per cent stake. Satish also had links to Tapan Sarkar – a noted gangster and drug mafia boss who is now on the run.
The Mahadev betting app dragnet has also hauled in Bollywood celebrities, among the most notable of whom is actor Ranbir Kapoor, who was accused of promoting a subsidiary app.
Actor Sahil Khan was arrested in connection with this case. He got bail in July.
