The CBI on Wednesday conducted searches at the residence of former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel in connection with the alleged Rs 6,000 crore Mahadev app scam, officials said, according to news agency PTI.
The probe agency teams swooped down at the residence of Baghel in Raipur and Bhilai as well as the residential premises of a senior police officer and a close associate of the former chief minister, they said. The raids were also being carried out at the places linked to Baghel’s close aides, news agency IANS reported, citing media reports.
At around 7.45 a.m., a CBI team went to the house of Bhilai MLA Devendra Yadav to investigate the Mahadev case. But Devendra’s supporters were not allowing the CBI officers to enter the house. A central agency team was at the residence of Baghel’s advisor, Vinod Verma. Further details were awaited, as also the official confirmation.
The Mahadev app is operated by Chhattisgarh’s Saurabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal from Dubai, Customers of the app were given two numbers one for depositing money for the betting and the other for cashing out the winnings.
Last year in May, the ED named a German national Lark Marshall and four Indians, Ratan Lal Jain, Hari Shankar Tibrewal, Girish Talreja and Shubham Soni besides Uppal and Chandrakar as the app’s brains trust, according to a Hindustan Times report.
In a post from Baghel’s X handle, the former chief minister’s office said, “Now CBI has arrived. Former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel is scheduled to go to Delhi today for the meeting of the ‘Drafting Committee’ constituted for the AICC meeting to be held in Ahmedabad (Gujarat) on 8 and 9 April. Before that, the CBI has reached Raipur and Bhilai Niwas.”
The CBI has taken over the investigation from the Economic Offences Wing of the Chhattisgarh Police, which had earlier named Congress leader Baghel, promoters of the app, Ravi Uppal, Saurabh Chandrakar, Shubham Soni, and Anil Kumar Agrawal, and 14 others in its FIR. Baghel had termed the EOW FIR “politically motivated.”
The Enforcement Directorate, which is also probing the case, has alleged that its probe revealed the involvement of several top politicians and bureaucrats from Chhattisgarh.
The app was an umbrella syndicate arranging online platforms for illegal betting websites to enrol new users, create user IDs and launder money through a layered web of ‘benami’ bank accounts, it claimed. The projected proceeds of crime are about Rs 6,000 crore, the ED earlier said.
