Ranbir Kapoor, on Wednesday, was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the Mahadev online betting app case. He was directed to be present in front of the probe agency on October 10.
The actor has been a social media influencer for the online betting platform and has reportedly received payments for carrying out promotional activities for the app.
Apart from Ranbir, several A-listers from Bollywood including actors, singers and comedians, are under the scanner of the probe agency for participating in the lavish wedding of Sourabh Chandrakar, the co-promoter of the online betting app, in Dubai.
A Hindustan Times report quoted agency sources stating that some of the celebrities are likely to be summoned as witnesses in the money laundering case against the platform.
For the unversed, the agency carried out searches in several cities including Kolkata, Bhopal, and Mumbai in an attempt to connect the dots that allegedly lead to money laundering networks connected with the Mahadev Online Book App, a betting platform headquartered in the UAE.
According to the case, large-scale hawala operations are allegedly being done using the platform to siphon off proceeds of betting to off-shore accounts.
“Chandrakar and MOB platform’s other promoter Ravi Uppal have created an empire for themselves in the UAE. The sudden and illegal riches are being openly flaunted by them,” ED sources said.
Meanwhile, it is also being reported that the platform allegedly spent ₹200 crore on the wedding while the agency is trying to trace the money trail to establish the end-beneficiaries, reported Hindustan Times.
The probe also highlights that the celebrities who performed at the wedding were paid a hefty sum of fees through dubious transactions. The stars were reportedly paid ₹40 crore by the promoters of the betting platform to attend a party at a seven-star luxury hotel in Dubai scheduled for September 18 this year.
“Private jets were hired to ferry family members of the wedding party from Nagpur to UAE, celebrities were hired to perform in the marriage and wedding planners, dancers, decorators, etc, were hired from Mumbai and hawala channels were used to make the payments in cash,” the sources said.
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