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Cricketer Suresh Raina summoned by ED in probe into online betting platforms: Officials
Cricketer Suresh Raina has been summoned on Wednesday by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at its Delhi office in connection with an probe into betting platforms
Cricketer Suresh Raina has been summoned on Wednesday by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at its Delhi office in connection with an ongoing probe into illegal betting platforms, officials told HT late Tuesday night.
Details were not immediately available on the possible line of questioning to the former Team India star Suresh Raina. The ED has been following various threads in multiple cities as part of a wide probe into online platforms duping users and laundering money.
On Monday, actor Rana Daggubati appeared before the ED in Hyderabad in a cse linked to the probe. The agency had issued summons to four actors — Prakash Raj, Vijay Deverakonda, Rana Daggubati and Lakshmi Manchu — in July.
The agency had also summoned officials from Google and Meta last month to aid its investigation into betting apps that use multiple platforms for surrogate advertisements.
The financial crime investigation agency has been talking to many stakeholders, including media houses, that may have got money for advertisements from these platforms.
Agency officials have told HT in the past that the betting platforms banned over the years continued their operations by changing names, and were promoted by celebrities and social media influencers.
“These platforms are in violation of multiple laws and directions by the Indian government... It is estimated that around 22 crore (220 million) Indian users are currently engaged on various betting apps, and 11 crore (110 million) of these are regular users,” an officer told HT.
In just the first three months of 2025, more than 1.6 billion visits were recorded on illegal betting websites or apps, and it is suspected that the online betting market in India might be worth around $100 million, an ED officer said.
“The estimates also suggest that top betting apps are evading ₹27,000 crore in taxes every year,” they added.
Meanwhile, also on Tuesday, an ED probe team carried out searches at 15 locations in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Madurai and Surat to get more information into a racket behind a betting app called ‘Parimatch’. This investigation was initiated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) upon a case registered by the Cyber Police Station in Mumbai in 2024.
Preliminary investigation into this case showed funds were collected from duped users in mule accounts, which were layered through multiple payment aggregators and money transfer agents — aggregating to more than ₹2,000 crore, officials told HT.
This amount was laundered through crypto wallets, smaller cash withdrawals through ATMs in a locality in Tamil Nadu, and through low-value UPI transfers, sources said.
