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 probe agency had filed a money laundering chargesheet 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”.

Das had later submitted before the special court in Raipur that he had been framed as part of a conspiracy and he had never delivered cash to politicians.

The ED investigation has shown that Mahadev Online Book App is run from a central head office in the UAE, officials said. It operates by franchising “Panel/Branches” to their known associates on 70-30 per cent profit ratio, it had said.

Large scale hawala operations are done to siphon off the proceeds of betting to off-shore accounts, it had said.

Large expenditure in cash is also being done in India for advertising of betting websites to attract new users and franchise (panel) seekers, the ED had said.

The company promoters hail from Bhilai in Chhattisgarh and the Mahadev online book betting application is an umbrella syndicate arranging online platforms for enabling illegal betting websites.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Rohit Godara, the mastermind behind the sensational murder of Rajput leader and Shri Rashtriya Rajput Karni Sena chief Sukhdev Singh Gogamedi, escaped India by travelling to the United States using the illegal ‘Donkey Flight’ technique, sources have said.

Godara, a resident of Bikaner’s Lunakaran, cannot be traced in the US, and is believed to be somewhere in Canada, but his exact whereabouts are unknown. He has over 32 cases registered against him at various police stations in India.

The ‘Donkey Flight’ technique, dubbed “Dunki” in Punjabi and the central theme of the upcoming Shah Rukh Khan film of the same name, is a method that involves a series of calculated stops across multiple countries, exploiting vulnerabilities in visa systems and immigration regulations.

According to sources, Godara used this method to hop from one place to another before landing in the US and then slipping off to Canada. 

Gogamedi’s murder

On December 5, Gogamedi, a prominent Rajput leader from Rajasthan, was sipping tea with four other men at his Jaipur residence around noon. While in the middle of a conversation, two of the men got up from their chairs and fired indiscriminately at Mr Gogamedi leaving him in a pool of blood on the floor. 

During the exchange of fire at Mr Gogamedi’s residence, one of the three shooters, identified as Naveen Singh Shekhawat, was also killed. A security guard of Mr Gogamedi was critically injured in the firing. 

Godara, closely associated with both Goldie Brar and Lawrence Bishnoi’s gangs, has claimed responsibility for Mr Gogamedi’s murder. 

“I am Rohit Godara Kapursari, brother of Goldie Brar. Today we take full responsibility for the murder of Sukhdev Gogamedi,” Godara wrote on social media. “He (Mr Gogamedi) used to back our enemies.”

According to police, Godara used to run extortion rackets against businessmen in Rajasthan, demanding sums ranging from Rs 5 crore to Rs 17 crore. He is also the main accused in the murder of gangster Raju Thehat in Sikar last year – a crime Godara took full responsibility for in a similar Facebook post, adding that Thehat was eliminated for the deaths of gangsters Anandpal Singh and Balveer Banuda.

On June 13 last year, Godara fled New Delhi to Dubai on a fake passport using the name ‘Pawan Kumar’. There is an Interpol Red Notice circular issued against him.