When Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigators followed suspicious money trails connected to the illegal betting platform 1xBet, they did not expect to end up outside a two-room shanty in Delhi. The agency had been tracking unusually large transactions between August 2024 and April 2025 when a single bank account drew their attention: it had received deposits of ₹331.36 crore in just eight months.
The account, agency officials said, belonged to a Rapido bike-taxi driver who spent most of his day ferrying passengers across the capital. His earnings were modest; his lifestyle, unremarkable. During questioning, the man said he had no knowledge of the deposits and denied any involvement in financial operations.
For the ED, the mismatch between the account holder’s profile and the transaction volume signaled something familiar — the use of “mule accounts”, bank accounts exploited by laundering networks using forged or rented identities to route illicit funds.
Links to Illegal Betting and a High-End Destination Wedding
As investigators dug deeper, the trail widened. More than ₹1 crore from the driver’s account had been used to pay for a luxury destination wedding in Udaipur, officials said. The event reportedly involved a young Gujarat politician, who may now be summoned for questioning as part of the broader probe.
Authorities discovered that funds entering the driver’s account originated from multiple unidentified sources, often tied to digital wallets and shell entities operating across state lines. The money would then move rapidly into other accounts flagged for suspicious activity.
At least one of the incoming fund channels, the ED confirmed, was linked to illegal betting operations. The pattern matched what investigators have observed in previous online gaming and betting laundering cases: small operators and low-income individuals positioned as financial conduits, often without their knowledge.
A Growing Network Beneath India’s Betting Economy
The investigation reflects a shift in the structure of illicit betting networks, which have grown more sophisticated and diffuse as enforcement tightened. With high-profile seizures and celebrity questioning in the 1xBet case — including attachments of assets said to belong to former cricketers Shikhar Dhawan and Suresh Raina — operators appear increasingly dependent on disposable financial identities at the bottom of the social ladder.
Investigators say mule accounts allow networks to obscure the origin and ownership of funds. They are frequently linked to individuals who lack digital literacy, have limited financial footprints, or are recruited for small payments in exchange for sharing KYC details.
But in this case, officials suspect identity fraud: either the driver’s documents were misused without his consent, or access to his bank account was compromised in a more systematic manner. Both possibilities point to a sophisticated laundering architecture that is designed to deflect scrutiny from those at the top of the chain.
ED Expands Its Probe Into Sources, Recipients, and Political Links
The ED is now reconstructing the entire chain of sources and beneficiaries, examining every transaction tied to the driver’s account. Officials believe the case may lead to additional arrests, financial attachments, and potential political questioning as the money trail reveals new layers of participation.
For now, investigators are focused on identifying the operators controlling the network of accounts and the mechanisms used to disguise the scale of betting-linked proceeds. The probe, officials say, is part of a broader crackdown on illegal online wagering — an industry that has proven resilient, lucrative, and increasingly intertwined with celebrities, influencers, and political figures.
What began as a search for technical irregularities in betting transactions has now become a window into one of the more complex money-laundering ecosystems in India — one that stretches from glitzy destination weddings to the doorstep of an unsuspecting bike-taxi driver in Delhi.
