PANAJI: The Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) pan-India crackdown on alleged illegal betting racket allegedly involving Karnataka Congress MLA K C Veerendra has led to massive seizures including Indian and foreign currencies, gold, silver and property documents from Goa and other states.
Raids led by the ED’s Bengaluru unit yielded about Rs 12 crore cash, including Rs 1 crore foreign currency, gold jewellery valued at Rs 6 crore, 10 kg of silver, four vehicles and several property documents, some of them traced to Goa. The raids were carried out on August 22-23 at 31 locations across India, including Gangtok, Chitradurga, Bengaluru, Hubli, Jodhpur, Mumbai and Goa. Officials also froze 17 bank accounts and two lockers.
In Goa, ED teams, assisted by Goa police, searched five casinos and their offices in Panaji and Calangute. Employees were questioned and their statements were recorded in the presence of witnesses.
Veerendra was arrested in Gangtok today and produced before the Judicial Magistrate there. The ED secured a transit remand to bring him before a Bengaluru court.
According to the ED, Veerendra is accused of running betting websites such as King567, Raja567, Puppy’s003 and Rathna Gaming. His brother is alleged to be operating business entities from Dubai, including Diamond Softech, TRS Technologies and Prime9Technologies.
