Chhattisgarh: ED arrests Dammani brothers, 2 others in Mahadev App betting case

The accused were arrested from Chhattisgarh’s Durg district and they were granted custodial remand for six days after ED produced them in court

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday arrested four people from Chhattisgarh’s Durg district in an alleged money laundering case related to Mahadev online betting application. The accused were granted custodial remand for six days after ED produced them in court.

In December last year, ED started investigating banking transactions of ₹5,000 crore related to an online gaming application, Mahadev, that happened over a year across the country. (Representative Image)

Saurabh Pandey, ED’s lawyer, said, “Four persons namely --Sunil Dammani, Anil Dammani, Chandra Bhushan Verma and Satish Chandrakar have been arrested by ED from Durg district. The court has granted six days custodial remand to ED. The next hearing is on August 29.”

He further said that the Dammani brothers were engaged in money laundering while Bhushan Verma was a police officer who was giving protection to Dammani brothers. “Chandrakar was a technical support and providing IDs of Mahadev App,” he said.

In the last two days, ED conducted searches at several locations in Raipur and Durg, apparently in connection with online betting activities, according to people familiar with the matter.

In December last year, ED started investigating banking transactions of ₹5,000 crore related to an online gaming application, Mahadev, that happened over a year across the country.

According to Chhattisgarh police officers, the Mahadev gaming application is being operated from around 30 centres. They estimate that around a million individuals have placed bets on Mahadev application in the last year and of them, about 100,000 placed multiple bets. “Most of these bets range from ₹1,000 to ₹5,000,” the officer cited above added. The primary target of the app seems to be the middle class, he said.

Mahadev app handlers got the money deposited into saving bank accounts opened using fake documents or by luring poor persons to give their Aadhaar or Permanent Account Number (PAN) details in lieu of ₹5,000, the Chhattisgarh police investigators said.

The officers said Mahadev app handlers swiftly transferred the money from these saving accounts to their corporate accounts so that no more than ₹50-60 lakh remained in the saving accounts. “We have zeroed in more than 50 corporate Mahadev accounts and have details of about 10,000 savings accounts of people which were used to place bets,” an officer said on the condition of anonymity.

Investigators claim the Mahadev App infrastructure is being run from Dubai, where betting is legal, and was used to lure Indian customers. They said ED is likely to question some of the main accused in the case shortly and may initiate proceedings against the entities in Dubai.