A court has sent businessman Vikas Garg, arrested in the money laundering probe tied to the Mahadev Betting App and Sky Exchange, into custody with India's Enforcement Directorate till July 24. Investigators are using this window to trace exactly where the proceeds of the betting operation ended up.
Bank records and papers put before him
During the remand, ED officers have confronted Garg with bank transaction records and a stack of financial documents, aiming to reconstruct the full trail of his assets. The agency's case is that illegal money generated through online betting was routed into multiple companies and properties to make it look like legitimate business income.
A Rs 1175 crore route into a US software firm
The probe has found that betting proceeds were used to acquire American software company Ebix Inc. for roughly Rs 1175 crore. The ED says Garg holds a 97.58 percent stake in the company, and it is now working to establish where such a large sum originated and which accounts it passed through before landing in the deal.
Assets already attached before the arrest
Even before Garg was taken into custody, the ED had attached movable and immovable assets worth about Rs 940.77 crore belonging to his family and companies linked to him. The list includes a luxury bungalow in Delhi, several high-value plots of land, equity shares and other investments.
Nearly Rs 4,000 crore in assets targeted so far
According to the agency, action has now been taken against close to Rs 4,000 crore worth of assets in India and abroad in this case overall, some attached, some seized and some frozen. Investigators allege the illegal earnings were funnelled into companies based in Dubai, Mauritius and the UK to give them a legitimate appearance, using investment routes such as FCCBs, FDI, FPI and QIPs. These are routes through which foreign capital legally flows into a company, and the agency suspects they were misused here to disguise where the money had actually come from.
An alleged Rs 450 crore-a-month operation
The ED contends that the Mahadev Online Book and Sky Exchange network generated close to Rs 450 crore in illegal earnings every month. That money, the agency says, was laundered through shell companies, fake billing and cash transactions to make it appear legitimate. The investigation into the wider network and the role played by other individuals connected to it is still ongoing.
