‘No evidence against me’: Chhattisgarh CM’s political advisor Verma dares ED

Verma’s house was among the locations raided by ED on Wednesday in connection with its money laundering probe related to the online betting case. Verma insisted that he was innocent. The raid was like a dacoity, he said, alleging that ED officials took away jewellery from his house despite producing receipts for them, which he said, was in contravention of its procedures.

Late on Wednesday, ED announced the arrest of four persons for laundering proceeds from a scam involving an online betting app in Chhattisgarh. An assistant sub-inspector in Chhattisgarh police, Chandra Bhushan Verma, was among the four. A businessman and two hawala operators were the other three.

An ED statement issued after the raids linked ASI Verma to the chief minister’s political adviser and said Verma was the one channelling money received for bribes

“Investigation has revealed that although ASI Chandra Bushan Verma, is not a very senior officer in the police hierarchy, but through his relationship with Vinod Verma and with the help of money power received from kickbacks sent by Ravi Uppal in Dubai, he has managed to influence senior officers.. ASI Verma has admitted before ED that he was receiving and paying large monthly bribes to many powerful people. ASI Verma has admitted that the bribe payments were enhanced after some action was done by police in May 2022,” ED said in its statement.

At a media briefing on Thursday, Vinod Verma dared ED to produce evidence of his connection to the police officer.

“As far as my relation with Chandra Bhushan Verma is concerned, I challenge ED to give any evidence about any sort of connection with him… ED has raided my house. ED has no evidence against me. Was the ED raid based on merely the statement of just one person against me,” Verma said.

Verma insisted that the entire ED case against him was based on a fictional magazine article.

“There was a fictional article published in a magazine in which it was claimed that I have some role in a betting scam. The article is totally false and misleading. I am challenging in the court and I had also asked the author of the story to provide any evidence on which the story was written. I also wrote to the then police chief of Durg and complained about the article,” said Verma.

In its statement, ED said that police officer Verma and businessman Satish Chandrakar received “hefty monthly money via hawala from Dubai-based promoters of Mahadev Online Book and were distributing the same to senior police officers and leaders politically connected to the Chief Minister’s Office as protection money”. ED also said ASI Verma had so far allegedly received ₹65 crore via this channel, kept his cut and disbursed the remaining amount.

The ED statement also elaborated on the betting scam, stressing that its probe into money laundering was based on FIRs registered by Chhattisgarh Police.

“ED investigation in the Mahadev Online Book case revealed that Mahadev Online Book provides online platforms for illegal betting in different games such as poker, card games, games of chance and betting on cricket, badminton, tennis, football games among other.

It identified Sourabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal from Bhilai in Chhattisgarh as the main promoters of Mahadev Online Book and said they were running their operations from Dubai.

“They advertise contact numbers over websites and lure people to play to earn profits. Such numbers can only be contacted over WhatsApp. Once a user contacts this number, he is provided two separate contact numbers. One number is to be contacted for depositing money and collecting points in User IDs used to make bets,” the agency claimed.

“That as part of the operations, a huge number of bank accounts in the name of unsuspecting people were opened by the promoters and panel operators. That most of the bank accounts were opened in Chhattisgarh only. That police and politicians, despite observing the disastrous effect of illegal betting on youth and economy, closed their eyes to all these operations,” the ED statement said.