On Thursday, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) provisionally confiscated assets to the tune of 11.14 crore of two former Indian cricketers, Suresh Raina and Shikhar Dhawan, as part of a money laundering investigation into the illegal betting site 1xBet.
The ED has provided that the move has been made in the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The properties attached are mutual fund investments worth 6.64 crore in the name of Suresh Raina and an immovable property worth 4.5 crore in the name of Shikhar Dhawan. It is not the first time that both cricketers were interrogated by the agency, Raina was interrogated in August and Dhawan was interrogated in September as part of the continuing investigation.
The investigation is based on the accusations that an online betting platform 1xBet and a number of related web portals were connected with a series of massive fraud, deceit, and evasion of taxes. The agency believes that these sites have defrauded thousands of users in India and it has drained off crores of rupees using illegal betting platforms and dodged huge sums of direct and indirect taxes in the process.
Both Raina and Dhawan are under investigation, and both became unavailable to comment on the allegations of having financial ties to the platform. Nonetheless, it is yet to be ascertained by the ED whether the two players were directly involved or not and how they accidentally joined the alleged money laundering network.
Based in Curacao, 1xBet has been registered as a worldwide known bookmaker that has been in the betting industry more than 18 years. The firm boasts of providing betting services on thousands of sporting events in the world with its website and mobile application operating in more than 70 languages.
This move by the ED is significant in the crack down that it has been undertaking so far in its fight against illicit betting and money laundering activities associated with offshore gambling sites.
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