ED concludes raids at Chikoti Praveen's residence after 18 hrs; finds incriminating docs

A day after the Enforcement Directorate's crackdown on Nepal casino dealers in Hyderabad when multiple locations were raided including Chikoti Praveen's residence in IS Sadan, the searches ended on Thursday morning following which the agency recovered a few items, said to have been linked with the alleged hawala transactions. The raids at Praveen's residence went on for around 18 hours before ending. 

As per the latest updates, the ED has seized some important documents along with a few laptops and mobile phones which were found in his home. In addition to that, all the luxury cars owned by Praveen were also checked by the officials for any evidence in the case. 

During this while, the agency noted that Chikoti Praveen had organised casinos in Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Goa as well where several VIPs were invited to his casinos.

Reportedly, the ED has been suspecting Praveen's connection with many celebrities and is also inquiring about suspicious transactions from the laptop seized from his residence. 

ED raids eight properties of casino dealers in Hyderabad

Earlier on Wednesday, the central agency carried out multiple raids at 8 locations in Hyderabad, including on Chikoti Praveen's residence in IS Sadan, and Madhav Reddy's house in Bowenpally. Praveen was accused of organising a casino in Nepal twice where many VIPs were also invited.

Apart from foreign countries, it has been alleged that he also organised a casino recently in Andhra Pradesh which further unleashed a major controversy and also led to a war between the ruling and opposition parties in the state. 

This happened in January this year during the Makar Sankranti festival when the ruling YSRCP government was accused of bringing the "casino culture" into the state. This also led to a major clash between the ruling party and the main opposition Telugu Desan Party (TDP) in Gudivada in Andhra Pradesh's Krishna district.

Many YSRCP activists allegedly also attacked members of the TDP when the party's fact-finding committee went to the K Convention hall in order to inquire into the casino centre organised on the premises during the festival. 

Videos of the event also went viral on social media. A case was registered against Ex-minister Kodali Nani by the CBI. 

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