ED begins investigation into Mahadev gaming application under PLMA

According to the official, the corporate accounts seem to be linked to shell companies, used for transferring or laundering money obtained by illicit online gaming applications to safe foreign destinations in the Middle East

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has begun its investigation into the banking transactions of the ‘Mahadev’ online gaming application in which transactions worth ₹5,000 crore are said to have taken place, officials said.

The information is being sought under section 54 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 (Representative Image)

In its investigation for money laundering through the said app, the ED in a letter to Chhattisgarh’s Durg police, dated December 9, sought details of the case from the station house officer (SHO) of the Supela police station.

The letter, written by assistant director (ED) Mukesh Kumar to the Supela SHO stated, “In this regard, it is required to provide a copy of the FIR/charge sheets along with the details of the bank accounts discovered during the search operation related to the ‘Public Gambling Act’.”

The information is being sought under section 54 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.

In a crackdown on betting applications, Chhattisgarh police in the last three months arrested over 250 people mainly from Durg, Raipur and Bilaspur, including more than a dozen kingpins, according to the state police officials.

According to police, the arrested accused were allegedly operating centres in the state to lure people to indulge in online betting via the gaming application ‘Mahadev’.

“The ED has asked for all the details mentioning the sections of PMLA which means that a case has been registered. The ED will be focusing on more than 50 corporate accounts linked with gaming applications,” said a senior police official of Durg.

According to the official, the corporate accounts seem to be linked to shell companies, used for transferring or laundering money obtained by illicit online gaming applications to safe foreign destinations in the Middle East.

“These activities can attract stringent provisions of both Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) as well PMLA,” the officer added.

Earlier, the police estimated that transactions worth ₹5,000 crores have taken place in the past year through the ‘Mahadev gaming application’ across the country, mainly operated from Chhattisgarh.

According to them, the gaming application was being operated from more than 30 centres across India and more than 200 crores of transactions are done from each centre.

The ED estimated that about a million individuals actively placed bets on the ‘Mahadev App’ in the last year. “Most of these bets range from ₹1,000 to ₹5,000 and were aimed to target the middle class and the lower middle-class families,” officials said.

According to police, Mahadev App handlers got the money deposited into savings bank accounts opened using fake documents and then swiftly transferred the money to their corporate accounts.

“We have zeroed in more than 50 corporate Mahadev accounts and have details of about 10,000 saving accounts of people which were used to place bets,” the police said.

The police said the Mahadev App infrastructure was being run from Dubai, where betting is legal, and it was being used to lure Indian customers. “ED is likely to question some of the main accused in the case shortly and may initiate proceedings against the app handlers in Dubai,” officials added.