NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday recorded statements of former TMC Lok Sabha member and Bengali film actress Mimi Chakraborty under provisions of the Prevention of Money laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with its probe into an “illegal" betting app named 1xBet.
Officials in the agency said the actress appeared before the ED investigators in response to a summons served to her in connection with the alleged online betting app scam case.
Mimi Chakraborty, who represented the West Bengal ruling TMC from Jadavpur Lok Sabha seat in south Kolkata between 2019 and 2024, was questioned for over four hours at the agency’s headquarters here, the officials said.
They said that the actress was questioned by the ED investigators to understand her links with the betting app, as she is linked through certain endorsements and financial transactions.
On Sunday, the ED had issued a summons to actresses Urvashi Rautela and Chakraborty. While Chakraborty appeared today, Rautela was asked to depose on Tuesday.
Before the Chakraborty, cricketers Suresh Raina and Shikhar Dhawan had also appeared before the ED officials in a similar case. The officials said the agency has been probing the money trail of online betting and believed huge sums were laundered and transferred overseas.
Notably, through a recent legislation, the Central government has imposed a ban on real-money online gaming and it is estimated that there are about 22 crore Indian users in various such online betting apps out of which half (about 11 crore) are regular users.
