Congress MLA Gets Bail in Illegal Online Betting Case
ED sleuths arrested K.C. Veerendra, representing Chitradurga Assembly seat, in Gangtok, Sikkim before he was ferried to Bengaluru on transit remand.
Bengaluru:The Special Court exclusively to deal with MPs/MLAs, Bengaluru on Tuesday granted bail to Congress MLA K.C. Veerendra who was arrested by sleuths of Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on charge of cheating the public by running illegal online betting. The MLA’s arrest took place on August 23 this year.
ED sleuths arrested K.C. Veerendra, representing Chitradurga Assembly seat, in Gangtok, Sikkim before he was ferried to Bengaluru on transit remand. On his arrest in Gangtok, sleuths of ED produced Veerendra before Judicial Magistrate, Gangtok before he was produced before jurisdictional Court in Bengaluru.
Prior to his arrest, ED sleuths conducted searches at 31 locations for two-days on August 22 and 23. Searches were conducted in Gangtok, Chitradurga, Bengaluru city, Hubballi, Jodhpur, Mumbai and Goa. In Goa, ED sleuths searched 5 casinos-Puppy’s Casino Gold, Ocean Rivers Casino, Puppy’s Casino Pride, Ocean 7 Casino and Big Daddy Casino in connection with illegal online betting.
The searches by ED at multiple locations yielded various incriminating documents, cash of about Rs 12 crore including Rs one crore in foreign currency, gold jewellery worth Rs 6 crore, silver articles about 10 kilograms, documents related to properties along with four vehicles were also seized.
In other searches conducted by ED in the case linked to illegal online betting on September 6, 24 carat gold bullion weighing 21.43 kilograms, 11 units of gold coated silver bars weighing 10.985 kgs and gold jewellery worth 1 kg valued about Rs 24 crore were seized. On October 10, searches by ED sleuths seized 24 carat gold bullion weighing about 40 kgs worth Rs 50.33 crore in two-lockers in Challakere in the case related to illegal online betting.