Ex-Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel named in FIR in Mahadev betting app case

Raipur: Former Chhattisgarh chief minister and Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel has been named as an accused in the FIR in the ‘Mahadev Book Online’ app scam, estimated to be worth Rs 6,000 crore, as reported by Hindustan Times. Reportedly, the Mahadev betting app and its associate companies illegally collected Rs 450 crore worth of proceeds of crime every month.

Along with Baghel, Mahadev promoters Sourabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal, 16 other named accused persons have been named in the first information report. Unnamed bureaucrats, police officers and officers on special duty during the ex-CM’s tenure too have been charged with various sections pertaining to cheating, criminal conspiracy, breach of trust, and forgery under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and sections 7 and 11 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The FIR was registered by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in Raipur on March 4, as per the HT report. It did not name any senior police or administrative officer.

In January, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) named Baghel in a supplementary chargesheet related to allegations of receiving bribes amounting to approximately Rs 508 crore from the promoters of the Mahadev app from the UAE.

Baghel is the Congress’ Lok Sabha election candidate from Rajnandgaon constituency where polling will be held in the second phase on April 26.

In July 2022, the ED had started investigating the Mahadev Book Online Betting App under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), alleging that the promoters of the app – Saurabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal – who are based overseas were remotely running illegal betting operations with proceeds of crimes running into several thousand crores.

The Mahadev online book betting application is an umbrella syndicate arranging online platforms for enabling illegal betting websites, the ED alleged.

The agency had said that the alleged illegal funds generated by the app were used to pay bribes to politicians and bureaucrats in Chhattisgarh. The company promoters hail from Bhilai in Chhattisgarh. Saurabh used to run a small business ‘Mahadev Juice Corner’ in Bhilai till 2018.

The promoters and panel operators fetched around Rs 450 crore per month through the online betting app after the lockdown was imposed in 2020 (following the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic), the FIR claimed.

For transaction of the illegally obtained money, bank accounts were opened on the basis of fake documents by the promoters and panel operators of the Mahadev Book App and hundreds of bank accounts were operated on the basis of commission with the money obtained from betting. The panel operators transferred illegal money to the promoters in the UAE through various bank accounts, it said.

A huge amount of money was spent by the app promoters for advertising betting websites. For this, annual star-studded events were also organised, in which celebrities were involved by paying them illegal money obtained from betting, the FIR said.

The illegal money obtained from online betting by the app promoters has been invested in many companies, shell companies, stock market and crypto currency, it said.

To prevent legal action against the illegal act of online betting, the promoters of Mahadev Book App had given huge protection money to various police and administrative officers and influential political persons, it claimed.

Hawala operators were used for the arrangement and distribution of the protection money and police officers/employees were also used as couriers for the purpose, the FIR claimed.

Various police, administrative officers and influential political persons have misused their positions and acquired illegal assets in the form of protection money.

Provisional attachment of many immovable properties has been done by the ED, it said.