A special court remanded Karnataka Congress MLA K C Veerendra Puppy in five days of Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody on Sunday, following his arrest for alleged involvement in illegal online and offline betting operations.
Puppy, who represents Chitradurga constituency, was arrested by ED officials in Gangtok, Sikkim, and brought to Bengaluru late Saturday night after securing a transit warrant. He was directly taken from Kempegowda International Airport to the ED office in Shanti Nagar. Following medical examinations, the MLA was produced before a magistrate on Sunday morning and remanded in custody until August 28 for further questioning.
According to sources in ED, Puppy was living with his second wife in Bengaluru.
In the initial probe, according to ED, it was found that Puppy had opened multiple shell companies to launder cash, especially his casino was being used to convert cash to legitimate income.
The investigation agency also claimed that the King567 online betting application is being handled from Dubai largely by Puppy’s nephew, Pruthvi.
According to ED, casinos in Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Georgia were being operated by Puppy in someone else’s name. “We got profit-sharing details from some premises for casinos operating outside India. Not on books at all. Also openly declared on his website Puppysworld,” said an ED source.
Puppy was also allegedly looking to buy the Land Casino from ‘lottery king’ Santiago Martin.
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Martin, who runs Future Gaming and Hotel Services Pvt Ltd, donated a whopping Rs 1,368 crore in electoral bonds to various political parties.