An app created by a retail assistant from Chhattisgarh is creating a huge betting storm. latest news of india


On Wednesday afternoon, TV channels across India started showing “breaking news” tickers. The headlines were that a top Bollywood actor was to be interrogated by the Enforcement Directorate. The investigation was related to the Mahadev app scam, which was an alleged illegal betting ring. 5,000 crores. This wasn’t the first time a little-known app has attracted attention. In August, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s political advisor and two of his officers on special duty (OSD) were questioned.

But as the case is becoming notorious day by day, the person the federal agency actually wants is a 26-year-old man from Bhilai city of Chhattisgarh, who is one of the two promoters of the company, and the founder of Mahadev App. There is also a brain behind it. To make ends meet during his childhood, he worked in a local textile shop; Even when he was young he was fond of betting; Growing up, many in Bhilai became the person who was expected to help, even if it meant breaking the law; And he married his childhood sweetheart from a village in Chhattisgarh The Rs 200 crore wedding in Dubai included a glittering list of Bollywood guests. The man Bhilai knows as Saurabh “Mahadev” Chandrakar.

Thirty kilometers away from Raipur, Bhilai is a city that developed in post-independence India around the Bhilai Steel Plant, established in 1955. Its streets are wide, green and quiet, designed to serve the plant, and it was located off one of these streets. That Chandrakar’s father lived in a dilapidated house while working as a Grade 4 employee in the Bhilai Municipal Corporation. He studied in a local school till class 12, but by 2014, at the age of just 17, he started working.

“From 2014-2015, they worked in commercial premises like readymade garment shops in a building called Akash Ganga. He earned between 12,000 to 14,000 per month, but he was already betting and gambling on his phone – a practice that is not unusual for youngsters of his age. He had no criminal record at this point,” said Samit Mishra, a police officer from the cyber cell of Durg district, who has kept a close eye on him.

Chhattisgarh Police officials believe that it was at Akash Ganga that Chandrakar became involved in more organized forms of illegal betting. He always had an interest in cricket and used to bet money on sports around the world. “There are many textile shops in Akash Ganga, and many people, including speculators, pass their time and increase their income by organized betting. It is likely that this is where Chandrakar met Mahadev App’s second promoter, Ravi Uppal (now 50),” Mishra said.

By 2017, the police had come to know Chandrakar. A political leader, to whom HT once spoke, said he had received a distressing phone call from his father. “He said that his son had gone crazy while betting on his laptop and some policemen had arrested him. They requested me to intervene and because I knew their father, no case was registered. It was a small thing. At that time I didn’t know what was going to happen,” the leader said.

Uppal was 24 years senior to Chandrakar and by the time he met Chandrakar in 2017, he had already run several small-scale businesses in Bhilai, Pune and Bangalore, got into a betting network and developed an app. In 2018, impressed by Chandrakar’s interest in sports, he roped him in and they started building a network. Within a few months, Chandrakar opened a restaurant named Juice Factory in Nehru Nagar, Bhilai.

In 2021, police investigated an illegal detention complaint at Talpuri International Colony when COVID-19 was raging, and for the first time they found signs of organized illegal activity when they came across a room containing computer systems. “They were running the racket from there, and had already established something in Dubai. But the issue was that as soon as there was 10 minutes of inactivity, the system would log out of Dubai, leaving nothing important on the screen in India. We had suspicions, but we had no concrete evidence that it was betting,” said an official familiar with the investigation.

Eventually, the Durg police conducted a second raid at a location in Mohan Nagar on March 30, 2022, and while neither Chandrakar nor Uppal were present, it became clear that the operation was actually a betting racket, and beyond just cricket. Had gone out.

In October 2022, the Enforcement Directorate swung into action and registered a case. Their investigation alleged that the Mahadev app provided illegal betting on various live games like Teen Patti and Poker, opportunities to bet on live cricket, badminton, tennis and other sports and even to bet on Indian election results. Provided an online platform. The agency identified Chandrakar and Uppal as the primary promoters and said they lived and worked in Dubai.

The investigation further said that the accused used to advertise the contact numbers on various websites and lure people with profits. Once interested, a unique user will be directed to multiple betting sites, depending on which one they wish to place money on.

On August 24, 2023, the ED arrested four people from Chhattisgarh in a money laundering case – Sunil and Anil Dammani, Satish Chandrakar, and a police sub-inspector Chandra Bhushan Verma. Alleging political links, they also interrogated people close to Chief Minister Baghel, including his political advisor Verma and OSDs Manish Banchhor and Ashish Verma. No arrests have been made so far, and all three have said they had nothing to do with the app, and were victims of political witch-hunts.

“Mahadev application is a start-up of the Congress government. The Congress government had given protection to many people linked to the scam,” said former minister and BJP spokesperson Ajay Chandrakar.

Meanwhile, the Congress claimed that it was the Chhattisgarh Police that busted the scam. “Our police busted the scam and arrested 500 people from across the country. We have evidence that BJP had patronized Chandrakar and I have photographs of a senior BJP leader with Saurabh Chandrakar,” said Chhattisgarh Congress chief spokesperson Sushil Anand Shukla.

the man who made dreams come true

In the leafy streets of Bhilai, there is acceptance that Chandrakar made his money through speculation, but there is also an almost grudging admiration for his rapid rise. Locals said that in the last four years, Chandrakar arranged for many youths to go to Dubai and work for him. A man who lived in the camp in Chandrakar’s area, where the family home is now closed because everyone has gone abroad, said Chandrakar had hired about a thousand people to work for him. “At least a thousand youth from Durg and Bhilai are now all over the world, and all of them were joined by Chandrakar. “Most were doing the same odd jobs he did when he started out, and had been in touch with him since his early bookmaking days,” said a neighbor.

One such youth who returned from Dubai, refusing to disclose his name, said that the number of the first batch of trainees was around 150. The accounting section earned Rs 30,000 per month, which I used to send back to my parents. There were young people from all over India, and my group lived in a palatial villa in Sharjah,” he said.

During his 10 months in the UAE, the person quoted above never saw Chandrakar, but as his wealth grew, so did the folklore around him. “We heard that he was paying sheikhs for his security. Someone said he had 40 bodyguards. Others he now hangs with Bollywood celebrities,” the man said.

In more ways than one, their marriage added to their legend. ED officials said that one, it was a grand party in Dubai on September 18, 2022, which was attended by Bollywood superstars who are now being questioned about how the payments were made to them. Second, despite being successful abroad, he was marrying his childhood sweetheart at home. “That’s why the investigation is difficult. He maintains his trust in people and does not break promises. That’s why they remain loyal to him. With the money he has now, he could have married anyone – even a model or actress – but he chose his first love,” said a Chhattisgarh police officer.

While the ED continues to crack down on the operation in India, Chandrakar is still at large.

Asked where they believed Chandrakar was now, a Chhattisgarh police officer said, “We have tracked his movement across 40 countries in the last year. He was once based in Dubai, but has now decentralized his operations. He never stays in one place for long, he has a group of security and keeps Uppal close to him. He once used to communicate with people in Chhattisgarh through an app called BOTIM but now it has been closed. The heat is rising, and he is being careful.”


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