Arrested by ED in illegal online betting, Congress MLA K C Veerendra released on bail, gets a grand welcome

According to ED, it found that Puppy had opened multiple shell companies to launder cash, and his casinos were being used to convert cash to legitimate income. The investigation agency also claimed that the King567 online betting application was being handled from Dubai primarily by Veerendra’s nephew, Appu alias Pruthvi N Raj.

The agency also said that Veerendra was operating casinos in Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Georgia in someone else’s name. “We got profit-sharing details from some premises for casinos operating outside India. Not on books at all… openly declared on his website, Puppysworld,” said an ED source.

In two separate raids, ED confiscated assets worth more than Rs 100 crore from him, including luxury cars, Rs. 40.69 crore in 9 bank accounts and one Demat account, Rs. 14.46 crore in 262 mule accounts recovered from one of the accused gateways through which money collected by multiple gaming websites being operated by Veerendra and his associates was being routed.

ED investigation revealed that the mule accounts were provided by various middlemen to the operators of these gaming websites, in this case, Veerendra’s nephew, who, in turn, used the same accounts to collect funds from various players. These transactions involve layering the players’ deposits through gateways and TSPs’ escrow accounts, then settling in mule accounts controlled by the gaming site owners.

These funds, ED has claimed, were further siphoned off in various ways, including through hawala transactions. Veerendra and his associates in Dubai also allegedly operated several gaming websites using various gateways and fintech service providers to layer funds and mask their illicit activities as genuine e-commerce businesses.

In another raid, the ED had seized 24-carat gold bullion weighing 21.43 kg, 11 units of gold-coated silver bars weighing 10.985 kg, and gold jewellery weighing around 1 kg, valued at about Rs. 24 crore.