Mahadev betting app accused Sourabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal may be extradited from Dubai soon: sources

New Delhi:

Sourabh Chandrakar – a prime suspect in the Rs 5,000-crore Mahdev app betting case – will be extradited from the UAE and brought to India within a week, sources told NDTV on Friday.

The extradition process – given the green light by UAE authorities after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs intervened on behalf of the investigating agency – is in its final stages, sources also said.

Chandrakar – who operated a juice shop in Chhattisgarh’s Bhilai before heading an alleged international gambling syndicate – has been in police custody in the UAE since December.

He was detained in Dubai – and placed under house arrest – on an Interpol Red Corner Notice. His colleague Ravi Uppal had been arrested a few weeks earlier, also in Dubai.

According to the ED, Chandrakar and Uppal ran the Mahadev network – which allegedly included a network of police, bureaucrats and politicians to protect the illegal activities – from Dubai.

Call centers were opened in Malaysia, Thailand and India, as well as in the UAE, where illegal betting was carried out by creating an entire ecosystem of interconnected mobile apps.

The ED claims that the network consisted of around 4,000 ‘panel operators’ spread across several states in India, and handled around 200 customers who had placed bets. Using this method, the two earned at least Rs 200 crore daily and managed to build a criminal empire in the UAE.

In September last year, the ED seized assets worth Rs 417 crore from raids at 39 locations in Mumbai, Calcutta and Bhopal; The network’s Indian operation was run with the help of two other associates of Chandrakar: Anil and Sunil Dammani. The former was also tasked with paying off police, bureaucrats and politicians with the illegally obtained money to buy their silence.

One such ‘protector’ named by the ED is Chandra Bhushan Verma, a former senior member of the Chhattisgarh police, who was paid through funds routed from the UAE.

The money went through a jeweler in the capital Raipur.

During interrogation, Anil Dammani said that his brother and he had passed nearly Rs 65 crore worth of illegal money through their hawala network in the last 24 to 36 months. His discount was Rs 6 lakh.

It also emerged that the police officer, Verma, had direct links with then Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s political advisor Vinod Verma, who helped keep an eye on the police.

This also led to the Congress leader getting embroiled in a corruption case; this was after a man claiming to be the ‘real owner’ of the Mahadev app claimed that he had given Mr Baghel Rs 508 crore.

The ED claimed a link between the man – Shubham Soni – and Bhupesh Baghel after it seized Rs 5.39 crore in cash from a Hawala courier named Asim Das. In March – weeks before the Lok Sabha elections – Chhattisgarh police filed an FIR against Mr Baghel and 18 others.

Mr Baghel denied all allegations and said, “The FIR is politically motivated, I was deliberately dragged into it under pressure. It happened because of political revenge.” He also alleged that the ED action against him was at the behest of the BJP; the ED reports to the central government.

He also alleged that the Congress government had in fact identified Chandrakar and Uppal as the bosses of the gambling syndicate and issued a notice, and since they were not under the jurisdiction of the state, it was the responsibility of the central government to track them down and arrest them.

The story of Chandrakar and Uppal (and the Mahadev app) reportedly started when the two became addicted to online gambling. This prompted the two to pool their savings for a gambling game in Dubai. Once there, they met a sheikh and a Pakistani national and came up with this plan.

Sourabh Chandrakar also allegedly implicated his brother Satish in the crime, putting him in charge of running four call centers and giving him a five percent stake. Satish also had links with Tapan Sarkar, a known gangster and drug mafia boss who is now on the run.

The Mahadev gambling app dragnet has also attracted Bollywood celebrities, the most notable of which is actor Ranbir Kapoor, who was accused of promoting an ancillary app.

Actor Sahil Khan was arrested in connection with this case. He was granted bail in July.