Raipur: Assistant sub inspector (ASI) Chandrabhushan Verma, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the Mahadev illegal betting app case in August this year, said that a “close friend” of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister had received money through hawala transaction, an ED chargesheet revealed on Saturday.

The money was then handed over to various police officials as “liasoning money”

As per the chargesheet, Verma told the Enforcement Directorate that “part of the hawala proceeds collected from Nagpur were handed over to Vijay Bhatia, Laxminarayan Bansal, Ashish Verma, and Manish Banchor. Vijay Bhatia is a close friend to the CM of Chhattisgarh…Ashish Verma and Manish Banchor are Officers on Special Duty (OSDs) to the CM of Chhattisgarh,” Verma said.

Sourabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal are the promoters of the online betting application, which is currently being probed by the Enforcement Directorate. During an ED questioning on August 22, ASI Verma said that Chandrakar’s associate Ravi Uppal sent the proceeds of the app through hawala operators in Nagpur.

He said that the money was then handed over to various police officials as “liasoning money”.

The ED chargesheet was filed at a special PMLA court in Raipur and has around 8,887 pages as evidence.