Mahadev app owner Ravi Uppal detained in Dubai

Ravi Uppal, one of the two main owners of the Mahadev online betting app, has been detained in Dubai by the local police on the basis of a red notice issued by the Interpol at the behest of the ED, official sources said Wednesday. Uppal, 43, was detained last week in that country and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) authorities are in touch with the Dubai authorities to get him deported to India, they said. Uppal is being probed by the ED in a money laundering case linked to alleged illegal betting apart from the Chhattisgarh Police and Mumbai Police. The federal probe agency had filed a money laundering charge sheet against Uppal and another promoter of the Internet-based platform, Sourabh Chandrakar, before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur in October. A red notice was subsequently issued by the Interpol on the basis of ED’s request. The agency had informed the court in the charge sheet that Uppal has taken a passport of Vanuatu, an island country in the Pacific Ocean, even as he has not renounced Indian citizenship. Uppal, the ED said in the prosecution complaint, “generated and enjoyed proceeds of crime and is involved in their concealment and layering.” It had alleged Uppal was “looking after the delivery of the liasioning money to the bureaucrats and politicians of Chhattisgarh through Chandrabhushan Verma”, an assistant sub inspector of police, and some others. The projected proceeds of crime in this case is about Rs 6,000 crore, as per the ED. The agency had claimed in November, just before the first phase of Chhattisgarh assembly polls, that forensic analysis and statement made by a ‘cash courier’ named Asim Das have led to “startling allegations” that Mahadev betting app promoters have paid about Rs 508 crore to former Chhattisgarh chief minister and senior Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel so far, adding that these allegations were “subject matter of investigation”.