Okay C Veerendra, Karnataka Congress MLA, has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in reference to a large-scale unlawful on-line and offline betting racket.
Karnataka Congress MLA KC Veerendra was arrested on Saturday in reference to an unlawful on-line and offline betting racket. The arrest was carried out by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) following a two-day search operation throughout 31 places in India. The investigation revealed a giant betting community, together with operations from Dubai and hyperlinks to a number of casinos. The raids, performed on August 22 and 23, spanned cities together with Bengaluru, Hubli, Mumbai, Jodhpur, Goa, and Gangtok, with searches additionally focusing on 5 well-known casinos, Large Daddy On line casino, Ocean Rivers On line casino, Pet’s On line casino Delight, Ocean 7 On line casino, and Pet’s On line casino Gold.
In accordance with the ED, Veerendra was working a sequence of unlawful on-line betting platforms underneath names like King567 and Raja567. His brother, Okay C Thippeswamy, is allegedly managing the backend of the operations via three firms based mostly in Dubai’s Diamond Softech, TRS Applied sciences, and Prime9Technologies. These companies had been discovered to be offering gaming-related name centre providers for the betting operations.
Authorities consider the Dubai-based operations had been central to the laundering and worldwide layering of illicit funds.
Rs 12 crore, overseas foreign money, gold and automobiles seized
In the course of the intensive search operation, officers seized roughly ₹12 crore in money, together with ₹1 crore in overseas foreign money. As well as, gold jewelry valued at round ₹6 crore, 10 kg of silver articles, and 4 high-end automobiles had been confiscated. Seventeen financial institution accounts and two financial institution lockers had been frozen underneath provisions of the Prevention of Cash Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
A number of paperwork associated to property and monetary transactions had been recovered from the residence of Veerendra’s brother Okay C Nagaraj and Nagaraj’s son, Pruthvi N Raj. The MLA was arrested from Gangtok on August 23, 2025, the place he had reportedly travelled with associates to discover the leasing of a land-based on line casino within the area. The ED mentioned that incriminating proof pointed to “complicated layering of money and funds” involving each home and worldwide gamers.
Veerendra was produced earlier than a Judicial Justice of the Peace in Gangtok and was granted transit remand to be dropped at Bengaluru for additional proceedings.
Key associates additionally underneath scrutiny
In addition to Veerendra, his brother Okay C Thippeswamy and nephew Pruthvi N Raj are additionally underneath the scanner for his or her function in managing the web betting operations and facilitating worldwide monetary transfers. Investigators famous that many of those operations had been being directed remotely from Dubai.