Tiger Shroff, Sunny Leone and Neha Kakkar are reportedly among Bollywood celebrities who attended the Rs 200 crore wedding of Sourabh Chandrakar, the promoter of Mahadev Online Book betting app, in Dubai in February. And this has brought the celebs under ED scanner and reports claim that the agency might summon them in connection with an ongoing investigation against the app's promoters.
The Enforcement Directorate says Chandrakar spent Rs 200 crore on his wedding of which a major share went to Bollywood celebrities who attended and performed at the wedding. Other celeb attendees include Ali Asgar, Atif Aslam, Bhagyashree, Bharti Singh, Elli AvrRam, Kriti Kharbanda, Krushna Abhishek, Nushrratt Bharuccha, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Vishal Dadlani, according to multiple reports. The family members of the bride and groom travelled in private jets from Nagpur while the celebs were reportedly flown in from Mumbai.
The ED, which is investigating a Rs 5,000 crore money laundering case against Chandrakar and his business partner Ravi Uppal, both from Bhilai, has frozen and seized Rs 417 crore worth of assets.
"The ED has recently conducted wide spread searches against the money laundering networks linked with Mahadev app in cities like Kolkata, Bhopal, Mumbai etc. and retrieved large amount of incriminating evidences and has frozen/seized proceeds of crime worth Rs 417 crore," according to the agency's statement cited by PTI.
What is Mahadev Online Book app?
The Mahadev Online Book app is an umbrella syndicate arranging online platforms for enabling illegal betting websites. The Dubai-based company operates by franchising branches to their known associates on 70-30 per cent profit ratio and was allegedly using the online book betting application to enrol new users, create user IDs and launder money through a layered web of benami bank accounts, according to the ED.
The company was allegedly involved in large-scale hawala operations wherein proceeds of betting were siphoned off to off-shore accounts. The ED said the company carried out large expenditure in cash within India for advertising of betting websites to attract new users and franchise seekers.
-- with inputs from PTI