Congress MLA KC Veerendra amassed wealth of over Rs 2,000 crore in short time, reveals ED probe

CHITRADURGA: Chitrdurga Congress MLA K C Veerendra Puppy, who has been arrested by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in illegal online and offline betting and money laundering case, has amassed wealth of over Rs 2,000 crore within a short span of time, the investigation has revealed.

The central agency had, on August 22, conducted raids at 31 locations linked to the Congress MLA including his hometown Challakere, Bengaluru, Hubballi, Panaji, Gangtok, Jodhpur and Mumbai. The ED had recovered approximately Rs 12 crore in cash, including Rs 1 crore in foreign currency, gold jewellery worth Rs 6 crore, silver articles around 10 kg, along with four vehicles under the PMLA Act of 2002.

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

On September 2, the ED’s Bengaluru unit, carried out search operations at multiple premises in Bengaluru and Challekere linked to Veerendra and others related to cheating of public in illegal online betting. During the search operations, five high end vehicles were seized. Further, an amount of Rs 55 crore were marked as frozen, including Rs.40.69 crore in nine bank accounts and one demat account of K C Veerendra and a total amount of Rs.14.46 crore in 262 mule accounts, according to the ED.

#WATCH | Bengaluru: The Enforcement Directorate yesterday 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… pic.twitter.com/Tzu5rhG6R7

— ANI (@ANI) August 24, 2025

The Congress legislator is linked to Puppy’s Casino Gold, Ocean Rivers Casino, Puppy’s Casino Pride, Ocean 7 Casino, and Big Daddy Casino and is accused of running several online betting sites in the name of King567, Raja567, Puppy’s003, and Rathna Gaming. The investigation also revealed that he had used some websites and payment gateways for financial transactions.

Veerendra’s brother K C Thippeswamy is said to be the kingpin of the whole operation and he runs three entities from Dubai — Diamond Softech, TRS Technologies and Prime9 Technologies. Thippeswamy other brother K C Nagaraj’s sone Prithvi N Raj and Anil Gowda among others are also said to be involved in the alleged scam.

The accused would also use gateways adn TPS escrow accounts to deposit players’ money which was used for hawala transactions and other businesses, the investigation has revealed.