A Gamble Too Far

MORE SKELETONS ARE tumbling out of the closet in the ₹6,000 crore Mahadev betting app scam that allegedly involves massive money laun­dering by its promoters and payments to a network of influential police officers, bureaucrats and politicians when Congress was in power in Chhattisgarh. As the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) combs more locations across the country for evidence, as it did on February 28 in West Bengal and Delhi-NCR, what comes to the surface are unpredictable twists and secrets suggesting that the probe would eventually lead to top politicians in the previous government.

ED has already uncovered extensive details about the illegal betting operated by Mahadev Online Book. The betting platform has been accused of misuse of cryptocurrencies, match-fixing and other irregularities. Hundreds of laptops and smartphones have been seized as part of the investigation, which has also traced more than 3,000 bank accounts used in this racket. The Mahadev betting app’s network extends beyond India to the UAE, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Pakistan. Many Bollywood celebrities were questioned by officials for their association with the app and its promoters. The masterminds of the betting ring are Saurabh Chandrakar, 28, and Ravi Uppal, 43, both originally from Bhilai in Chhattisgarh but now based in Dubai where they are under detention in the run-up to a deportation to India.

Open is in possession of disclosures made by police officer Chandrabhusan Verma, arrested in connection with the case by ED last August. Verma has admitted that, as an assistant sub-inspector with the state intelligence department, he had warned a group of people apparently related to the Mahadev app about an impending ED investigation against them. He sent WhatsApp messages to Satish Chandrakar, brother of promoter Saurabh, and Sunil Otwani, warning that 150 to 200 income tax and ED officials were in Raipur, Chhattisgarh’s capital, and were stay­ing in multiple hotels. Otwani is a lawyer who is identified as well-connected to senior bureaucrats, politicians and business­men of the state. Verma forwarded the same message he sent to Chandrakar and Otwani to several others, including a police of­ficer, a peon of a retired IAS officer, an Ayurvedic doctor and a businessman. They are Rakesh Verma, a sub-inspector of police who is Verma’s younger brother, Hemendra Sahu (whose number was saved as Hemendra Udyog Bhavan), Arvind Goenka Monty, who runs a steel factory in Raipur, and others.

Verma has admitted his role in the scam, and has in the process explained how the promoters routinely sent money through hawala operators—not only in Raipur but also in Nagpur—to those they wanted to keep happy. Verma states in his confession: “These chats were performed by me with the abovesaid persons. In these chats, I am informing these entities about the impend­ing ED action on the night of 20th July, 2023, as a lot of officers of ED & I-T (Income Tax) have come to Raipur.” He adds, “On being specifically asked about how I got to know about the ED action, I state that I was informed by Abhishek Maheswari who was Ad­ditional SP, Raipur, through FaceTime calls through mobile num­ber 9479191002.” Verma also says that some police officers got the information about the presence of officers from these Central agencies from the staff at various hotels in the city. Besides the two promoters, those named in the chargesheet are Vikas Chapariya, Chandrabhusan Verma, Satish Chandrakar, Anil Dammani, Sunil Dammani, Vishal Ahuja, Dheeraj Ahuja, Punaram Verma, Shiv Kumar Verma, Yashoda Verma, and Pawan Nathani. Accord­ing to reports, ED has arrested several others, including Nitish Diwan, who was close to the promoters; Nitin Tibrewal, a Kol­kata resident; Raipur-based Amit Agrawal; alleged ‘cash courier’ Asim Das; police constable Bheem Singh Yadav; and others.

According to people in the know, a formal entry of a com­plaint has been filed to investigate the claims made in the state­ment, especially since what emerges from Verma’s disclosures is that former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s office was involved in the betting scam. He says, “Ravi Uppal is a relative of Vinod Verma [niece of Uppal is the daughter-in-law of VinodVerma]. Vinod Verma is the political adviser [of Baghel].” He goes on to add that, at the behest of Vinod Verma, his associate Rahul Vakte used to receive, “on my instruction”, money from the brothers of Ravi Uppal through hawala operators like Anil Dammani, owner of Abhushan Jewellers in Raipur, and others.

In his statement, Verma—whose family manages or owns four businesses in Chhattisgarh—talks about the large network of hawala operations across countries and the app promoters’ links to those in power in the state under Baghel’s rule. Last November, just before the polls, ED had claimed that Asim Das, the alleged cash courier, had spilled the beans and said under interrogation that the promoters of the Mahadev app had paid upwards of ₹500 crore to Bhupesh Baghel. Das later retracted his statement. Baghel and Congress had called such charges against the former chief minister “vendetta politics”.

VERMA HAS SAID THAT, apart from Raipur-based hawala operatives, the betting app executives also sent money to officials in the state through hawala operatives in Nagpur. He said in the statement that on the instructions of Uppal’s associates in Dubai—Raj Gupta and Kapil Chellani— many people used to collect money from hawala operators to pay police officers for settling various police cases against the betting company. He named the police officers and the money paid to them in his confession. A sum of ₹20 lakh was paid to Sanjay Dhruv, then additional superintendent (SP) at Durg, accord­ing to Verma.

The people who received the money at his behest were constables Bheem Yadav and Amit Dubey, who had been raided by ED earlier. Again, ₹35 lakh was allegedly paid by the app’s promot­ers through hawala operators to Abhishek Maheswari, then ad­ditional SP, Raipur. Money sent to him was received by head con­stables Sandeep Dikshit and Radhakant Pandey, Verma claims.

The police officer averred that “protection money” was paid to other officers too. He said ₹25 lakh per month was paid from December 2021 till June 2023 to the then Inspector Gen­eral of Intelligence at Raipur; ₹20 lakh per month during the same period to the then IG (Police), Raipur; ₹20 lakh per month during the period to the then Senior Superintendent of Police, Raipur; and ₹10 lakh per month in that period to the then SP (Police) at Durg. Verma however cautioned, “Though I do not have any direct proof in relation to these payments, I have been told by Rohit Uppal, [brother] Rahul Uppal, Bheem Yadav and Prashant Tripathy about the payments…”

To a question by ED as to why he thought payments were also reportedly made to the likes of Vijay Bhatia (a business­man known to be close to Baghel), Laxmikant Bansal (another businessman), Ashish Verma (officer on special duty, or OSD, to Baghel), and Manish Banchor (another OSD to Baghel), Verma responded that he was not aware of the reason.

Verma said that while he never had a chat with either Ravi Uppal or Saurabh Chandrakar directly about hawala transactions, he used to communicate with Ravi’s brothers Rohit and Rahul “regarding the receipt of amounts through hawala channels through the mobile phone of Rahul Wakte [his associ­ate]”. He added in the statement accessed by Open: “They [Rahul and Rohit] would inform me about the amount and the name of the hawala operator from whom the cash had to be collected.” Verma said that the two brothers also gave him details of the bu­reaucrats and politicians to whom money had to be handed over. “Usually, the hawala operator used to be Anil Dammani,” he noted.

Verma said that the people he knew to be in direct contact with the promot­ers of the Mahadev app were Vijay Pandey, Bhim Yadav, Sahdeo Yadav and Prashant Tripathy. He said these people had visited Dubai to meet them. Verma maintained that he had never visited the UAE. ED had said earlier that Chandrakar got married at Ras Al- Khaimah, UAE, in a lavish ceremony in February 2023. According to the agency, Chandrakar had spent around ₹200 crore on the event and private jets were hired to ferry his relatives from India to the UAE. Meanwhile, Verma regretted that he didn’t have any docu­mentary proof of the amounts paid to bureaucrats and politi­cians because all the communication was done on FaceTime. Open couldn’t immediately contact the people named by Verma as recipients of the betting app’s funds.

The statement by the police officer conceded that apart from official work, he also used to help bureaucrats and politi­cians in the previous state government with details of property available for sale.

Asked about the money he had to pay to politicians, Verma explained that his associate Rahul Wakte (a salaried employee in a business run by his family) would collect money from Abhushan Jewellers at Sadar Bazar in Raipur. “Then this money was trans­ferred to Vivekanand Vidyapeeth, Kota, Raipur.” Vinod Verma used to collect the money from that address, his statement says. The political adviser to Baghel had collected about ₹5 crore within two years, Verma alleges in his statement.

The documents in possession of Open also dwell on informa­tion gathered by the state intelligence on the search operations conducted by ED. Verma says in his signed confession: “On the instruction of Abhishek Maheswari, [then] additional SP, two police officers of the crime branch were deployed near the ED’s of­fice in Raipur”. They were later interrogated by ED. Verma goes on, “Thereafter, as per my knowledge, some 4-5 local police informers were deployed outside the office in the guise of local vendors like tea sellers and street food vendors to gather day-to-day intelligence about ED and report to Sandeep Dikshit and Radhakant Pandey [head constables] for further reporting to Abhishek Maheswari.”

In his statement, Verma offered more details about the payments made by the promoters of the Mahadev online bet­ting app. Two people whom Verma claims received amounts upwards of around ₹1 crore are Soumya Chaurasia, former deputy secretary in the Chhattisgarh government (she is an ac­cused in a money-laundering case relating to the coal scam), and Vijay Bhatia, a close friend of Baghel. Another bureaucrat who received payments, according to Verma, is Dr Suraj Kumar, OSD to Baghel (₹35 lakh as one-time payment).

He said that as the app’s operations widened, Vinod Verma’s role in the whole plot also got bigger. “Thereaf­ter, Vinod Verma started to provide them police protection by abusing his position and in turn he also started demanding gratification from them. Vinod Verma received huge amounts from the promoters of Mahadev app,” Verma states.

He also talked about land deals in­volving bureaucrats, police officers, politicians and those associated with the betting scam. “I have been told by Rohit Uppal, Bheem Yadav, and Prashant Tripathy that the following immoveable properties are purchased or constructed in the name of politi­cians/bureaucrats from the amount received from Mr Chiku Motwani, who is the owner of Symmers Club and a friend of Ravi Uppal and Saurabh Chandrakar”:

– A flat in Ramayan Enclave, Kamadiah Shankar Nagar, Raipur (purchased by Abhishek Maheswari, then Additional SP)

– House of Piyush Bhatia in Swarnabhumi, Raipur (Bhatia was raided by ED for his alleged role in the betting scam)

– Benami immovable properties were purchased by Rohit Uppal and Rahul Uppal in the name of one Sibu Khan in Bilaspur

As regards the modus operandi of the Mahadev app promoters in arranging money through operations, 47-year-old Verma says he is “unaware” of how they do it. He, however, knows how the money collected from hawala operators is disbursed.

Offering a peak into how networking and familial ties resulted in officials conniving in corruption by friends and family, Verma says, “I have been told by Rohit Uppal, Rahul Uppal, Bheem Yadav and Prashanth Tripathy that the daughters of Ravi Uppal and Anand Chhabra, [then] Inspector General of Police (Raipur), were studying in Delhi Public School, Risali, Bhilai. From that time, they [Uppal and Chhabra] were close with each other. Now, the daughters of both of them are in London. Rohit Uppal, Rahul Uppal, Bheem Yadav and Prashanth Tripathy told me that Ravi Uppal met with Anand Chhabra in May-June, 2023, in London.” ED will probe such charges because, shockingly, Chhattisgarh Police began a crackdown on the app’s promoters in 2021, before ED began its probe.

ED is now cracking the whip, and it is not unlikely that Verma’s revelations are only the tip of the iceberg.

Abhishek Maheswariappbetting syndicateBhupesh Baghelbureaucratscrimepoliticiansscam