Mumbai: Mumbai crime branch's Special Investigation Team (SIT) has made the first arrest in the ₹15,000 crore Mahadev Book betting app case. The accused arrested by the SIT was involved in betting in India despite the ban on betting in India. The name of the arrested accused is Dixit Kothari (27).
A Mumbai Crime Branch official said that Kothari is the main operator of a betting application named “Lotusbook 08”. Investigation revealed that it started in the year 2021 and betting is still done through it. The official said that Kothari's email ID was used to get the domain and he had spent around Rs 20 lakh on its maintenance in the last two years. Officials said that despite betting being banned in India, the accused started betting in India by registering the website on a foreign domain.
Accused Dixit Kothari Sold Apps To Bookies And Punters
Kothari has sold some apps related to this to many people, especially bookies and punters. Mahadev Online Book Operations had created websites and closed chat groups. Through these, people were lured into illegal betting.
On November 8, the case of Mahadev betting app scam was registered by Matunga police on the orders of the court in 2023. After this, Mumbai crime branch had constituted SIT to completely investigate this matter. SIT is searching for other accused in the Mahadev betting app case.
More Than 30 People Booked
In this case, FIR was registered against more than 30 people including Saurabh Chandrakar, Ravi Uppal in Matunga police station, which was later handed over to Mumbai crime branch and later an SIT was formed to investigate it.
SIT had sent summons to actor Sahil Khan in this case and called him for questioning but he did not come. Khan had given the reason for not coming on summons as being abroad.
