Ravi Uppal, a co-promoter of the Mahadev online betting app, has been arrested in Dubai on an Interpol Red Notice sought by Indian agencies, PTI reported on Wednesday, citing officials. The CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are now working to bring him to India.
What has been reported
- Dubai authorities arrested Uppal, 46, based on the notice, PTI reported. ThePrint, citing security-establishment sources, said the process to bring him to India "will now begin."
- He was detained in the UAE in 2023, but agencies later found he was in Australia, PTI said.
- A CBI officer told ThePrint that Uppal and his partner hold passports from Vanuatu that they allegedly obtained with forged documents.
- The reports cite officials and sources. Neither carries a statement from the CBI, the ED or UAE authorities.
Days after his partner's return
The arrest came days after Sourabh Chandrakar, the other promoter named in the case, was brought back from Oman. A CBI team returned him to India on 1 November after an Omani court allowed his extradition in a money-laundering case the ED is investigating, PTI reported. ThePrint said Oman's police had detained him in June on an Interpol notice, and that a court in Raipur granted the CBI his remand on Wednesday before he was taken to Delhi for questioning.
Both men are from Bhilai in Chhattisgarh's Durg district, according to both reports.
The case against the app
Mahadev Online Book began operating in 2019-20 and grew sharply during the Covid-19 pandemic, PTI said. It is alleged to have generated proceeds of crime of Rs 80,000 crore since 2019, PTI reported; ThePrint put the estimate by investigators at over Rs 75,000 crore. Investigators allege the app works through panels run by franchise-style operators and moves money abroad through hawala channels.
A security-establishment source told ThePrint that questioning Uppal "will help us identify key players in this entire racket, the scale of the network and the money involved."
What is not yet known
The reports do not say when Uppal will appear before a UAE court, how long extradition could take, or what formal charges he faces in India beyond the money-laundering probe. These are allegations; no court has found him guilty.
BDT will update this story when an official statement is available.
How we verified this
VerifiedThe arrest in Dubai, the Interpol Red Notice and the CBI and ED extradition effort are reported by both PTI (via ETV Bharat) and ThePrint, based on officials and security-establishment sources; no CBI, ED or UAE statement had been read when this was written. The two reports give different size estimates for the alleged proceeds (Rs 80,000 crore in PTI; over Rs 75,000 crore in ThePrint) and both are attributed. The Vanuatu passport claim is from ThePrint, attributed to a CBI officer. Uppal has not been convicted of anything; every charge here is an allegation.
