India News | ED Conducts Raids in Cricket, Tennis Betting Case in MP, Punjab

New Delhi, Dec 13 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday said it conducted searches in Madhya Pradesh and Punjab as part of a money laundering investigation into a cricket and tennis betting racket.

The raids were undertaken on Thursday at five locations in Indore and Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh and Ludhiana in Punjab, the agency said in a statement.

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It said Rs 31 lakh in cash, some incriminating documents and digital devices were seized apart from bank deposits, mutual funds and fixed deposits worth Rs 8 crore being frozen under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) during the searches.

The ED case stems from an FIR registered by Ujjain Police against a man named Piyush Chopra, who in "connivance" with his associates generated "proceeds of crime" by running a cricket betting operation "on a large scale" using SIM cards procured using "fake" documents.

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Chopra, the ED alleged, established a setup where he and his employees used to place bets on a website called LONDONEXCH9.COM.

The man used "hawala" transactions to fund the bets and receive the winnings. All betting transactions were tracked using a software called 'Horse' which was obtained by Piyush Chopra through two persons -- Abhay Chopra and Sanjay Agrawal -- who were also allegedly involved in online betting activities, according to the ED.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)