Progress has been made in the high-profile criminal case that is currently under investigation in India. The case is related to an illegal betting app that was launched in the country recently.

The big case:

Both the country’s and foreign police forces worked on this case, and they significantly progressed when they identified key suspects and arrested them.

The case, widely known as the Mahadev Book, has seen thousands of participants and money worth more than $1 billion.

During the holidays, two of the main suspects were caught. The last person arrested was Ravi Uppal, the company’s co-founder. He is found in Dubai and has been deported to India, as the authorities claim. 

His partner is Saurabh Chandrakar, who is under the suspicion of creating an illegal betting app and network of operatives. The app was used for illegal gambling, along with money laundering and match-fixing, all of which are illegal. Chandrakar was arrested before his partner, earlier this year, and he’s already in jail.

The third member, Deepak Nepali, was arrested in India. Nepali is accused as one of the key members when it comes to developing the app. He used his political connections to avoid arrest, but in the end, after a long search, he was arrested. 

Rise and fall of the partners:

This case became famous in India after the public called it “a rags to riches story gone wrong”. The co-founders built their empire from scratch, and they rose up from their humble environment to become leaders of a successful company.

Before joining the gambling industry, Chandrakar and Uppal were owners of a small juice shop and a tire store. After that, the partners went to Dubai, where the Mahadev Book gambling app was founded thanks to them and the huge help of the local partners and operators.

As Asia Gaming Brief reports, the app featured various sports betting and casino games. 

Besides the co-owners, the company had a lot of ground agents. The agents and members of the crew used a lot of fake IDs to access the bank accounts and cryptocurrencies in order to launder the money.

The Enforcement Directorate authorities started working on this case in October 2022. Since then, significant progress has been made, and the authorities filed a case against Uppal and Chandrakar before the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Raipur. 

Since the process began, the police arrested more than 440 suspects and filed about 72 cases.