- By Aditya Jha
- Sat, 23 Aug 2025 02:16 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday arrested Karnataka's MLA from the Chitradurga constituency, KC Veerendra, from Sikkim in connection with an illegal online betting case. The central agency also recovered almost Rs 12 crore in cash, gold jewelry worth Rs 6 crore, and silver articles around 10 kg. The agency stated that the Congress MLA was arrested under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Case Act (PMLA), 2002.
The probe agency stated that the Congress MLA was produced before a designated magistrate in Sikkim's capital, Gangtok, on Friday, and a remand was obtained for producing the legislator before the court in Bengaluru. It further stated that Veerendra, along with his associates, had gone to Gangtok to lease a casino. Apart from this, the ED also stated that many property-related documents were seized from the legislator's son and brother as well, adding that some of his associates are handling the operations of online gaming from Dubai.
The Enforcement Directorate today arrested KC Veerendra, Karnataka's MLA from Chitradurga constituency, from Gangktok in connection with illegal online and offline betting case and recovered amount of approximately Rs 12 crore in cash, including approximately one crore in foreign… pic.twitter.com/HXpF1auWlD
— ANI (@ANI) August 23, 2025
"Many property related documents were also seized from the premises of Veerendra's brother K.C. Nagaraj and his son Pruthvi N Raj," ED informed in its statement. "His other associates like another brother K C Thippeswamy are handling operations of online gaming from Dubai," it added.
Earlier on Friday, the ED launched raids at 31 locations in several regions, including Gangtok, Bengaluru, Jodhpur, and Mumbai. “Search has revealed that the accused is running several online betting sites in the name of King567, Raja567, etc. Further, the brother KC Thippeswamy of the accused is operating three business entities from Dubai, viz, Diamond Softech, TRS Technologies, and Prime9Technologies, related to the call centre services and gaming business of KC Veerendra Puppy,” the probe agency stated.
“Further, 17 bank accounts and two bank lockers were also frozen," the ED added in its statement. The agency further stated that further investigation is ongoing for more details.