New Delhi, Dec 13 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday said it conducted searches in Madhya Pradesh and Punjab as part of a money laundering investigation into a cricket and tennis betting racket.
The raids were undertaken on Thursday at five locations in Indore and Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh and Ludhiana in Punjab, the agency said in a statement.
It said Rs 31 lakh in cash, some incriminating documents and digital devices were seized apart from bank deposits, mutual funds and fixed deposits worth Rs 8 crore being frozen under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) during the searches.
The ED case stems from an FIR registered by Ujjain Police against a man named Piyush Chopra, who in "connivance" with his associates generated "proceeds of crime" by running a cricket betting operation "on a large scale" using SIM cards procured using "fake" documents.
Chopra, the ED alleged, established a setup where he and his employees used to place bets on a website called LONDONEXCH9.COM.
The man used "hawala" transactions to fund the bets and receive the winnings. All betting transactions were tracked using a software called 'Horse' which was obtained by Piyush Chopra through two persons -- Abhay Chopra and Sanjay Agrawal -- who were also allegedly involved in online betting activities, according to the ED.