Bengaluru: ED has frozen around Rs 40.69 crore kept in 9 bank accounts and one bank account of Congress MLA KC Veerendra in a money laundering probe revolving
around illegal online betting investigations. On August 22, ED had arrested Karnataka MLA from Chitradurga KC Veerendra in Gangtok and later got his custodial remand. In total, the ED has frozen Rs 55 crore. "An amount of Rs. 55 crore (approx.) were marked freeze, including Rs. 40.69 crore (approx.) in 9 bank accounts and one Demat account of KC Veerendra and a total amount of Rs. 14.46 Crore (approx.) in 262 mule accounts recovered from one of the accused gateways through which money collected by multiple gaming websites being operated by K C Veerendra and his associates were being routed," said ED on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, ED again carried out fresh searches in several locations in Bengaluru and Challekere.
It has also seized five high end vehicles all Mercedes Benz with VIP number plates ending with 0003 and one with 5267.
The federal probe agency has claimed that illegal betting syndicate allegedly being run and one payment gateway being used could be around Rs 2000 crores.
"The accused is running several online betting sites in name of King 567, Raja 567, Lion 567. It has been revealed that several gateways are being used to route payments collected through websites," said ED on Wednesday.
"The money collected from these websites being operated by KC Veerendra and his associates through single gateway alone is more than Rs. 2,000 Crore in a short span of time," ED said in a statement on Wednesday.
ED claims Congress MLA's brother KC Thippeswamy is reportedly operating three business entities in Dubai, Diamond Softech, TRS Technologies and Prime9Technologies.
"These entities are related to call centre services and gaming business of KC Veerendra," said an official.
"We have traced other Dubai based entities like Castle Rock Project Management, Lascaux Core Project Management Services which have been incorporated by Veerendra in partnership with his brother and others," he added.
"K C Veerendra and his associates in Dubai are operating several gaming websites by using various gateways and fintech service providers for layering of funds and for masking their illicit activities as genuine e-commerce businesses," said ED.
On 22nd August - 23rd August ED had carried out searches at 31 locations in Karnataka, Goa and Sikkim. During these searches, an amount of Rs. 12 Crore in cash, gold jewellery worth Rs. 6 Crore, silver articles around 10 Kg along with 4 vehicle were seized.
"ED investigation revealed that the mule accounts are provided by various middlemen to the operators of these gaming websites, in this case Appu alias Pruthvi N Raj (nephew of K C Veerendra), who in turn use the same to collect the funds received from various players," said ED.
These transactions include layering the said money deposits of players through escrow accounts of gateways and TSPs (ticket service providers) and then making settlement in mule accounts which are controlled by the gaming site owners. These funds are further siphoned off in various ways, including through hawala transactions.
