Dubai police detain Mahadev online betting app owner Ravi Uppal following Interpol's red notice

New Delhi, December 13

Ravi Uppal, one of the two main owners of the Mahadev online betting app, has been detained in Dubai by the local police on the basis of a red notice issued by the Interpol at the behest of the ED, official sources said Wednesday.

Uppal, 43, was detained last week in that country and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) authorities are in touch with the Dubai authorities to get him deported to India, they said.

Uppal is being probed by the ED in a money-laundering case linked to alleged illegal betting apart from the Chhattisgarh Police and Mumbai Police.

The federal probe agency had filed a money-laundering charge sheet against Uppal and another promoter of the Internet-based platform, Sourabh Chandrakar, before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur in October.

A red notice was subsequently issued by the Interpol on the basis of the ED’s request.

The agency had informed the court in the charge sheet that Uppal had taken a passport of Vanuatu, an island country in the Pacific Ocean, even as he had not renounced Indian citizenship.

Uppal, the ED said in the prosecution complaint, “generated and enjoyed proceeds of crime and is involved in their concealment and layering”.