India Charges EaseMyTrip Co-Founder in ₹120B Skyexchange Case
India’s Enforcement Directorate has named EaseMyTrip co-founder Nishant Pitti as an accused in the Mahadev online betting money-laundering case. The latest filing focuses on an alleged route from Skyexchange betting proceeds into listed Indian shares through foreign portfolio investments.
The fifth supplementary chargesheet was filed before a special PMLA court in Raipur on September 10. It is the sixth chargesheet in the wider Mahadev case.
The ED also provisionally attached DEMAT shares held by Pitti worth ₹596 million ($6.2 million) and has asked the court to confiscate them as alleged proceeds of crime. The latest complaint names 42 individuals and companies.
ED Alleges an FPI Route Into Indian Shares
Investigators allege Pitti helped move illegal betting proceeds into the equity market under the guise of foreign portfolio investments. The agency says he entered into a pre-arranged share-price manipulation deal involving Easy Trip Planners and an associate of Hari Shankar Tibrewal, whom investigators link to Skyexchange.
The FPI route itself predates the latest chargesheet. In a March 2024 release, the Enforcement Directorate said Tibrewal used Dubai-based entities to invest betting proceeds in Indian stocks through foreign portfolio structures. Foreign entities linked to the network then held about ₹6.06 billion in Indian securities.
The new filing puts Pitti inside that alleged financial chain. It also names Ebix Group chairman Vikas Garg. The ED alleges that Garg-linked entities received ₹7.6577 billion ($80.1 million) from companies owned or controlled by Tibrewal. Investigators say those funds were used to acquire US-based Ebix Inc., India Today reported.
₹596M Is 0.5% of the Alleged Skyexchange Proceeds
Skyexchange is the larger number behind the case. The ED estimates that the betting platform has generated about ₹120 billion ($1.26 billion) in proceeds of crime since it began operating in 2016. The wider Mahadev network is alleged to have generated around ₹800 billion ($8.37 billion) since 2019.
Against the Skyexchange figure, the Pitti-linked attachment is relatively small. The ₹596 million in shares equals about 0.5% of the ₹120 billion attributed to the platform, based on a 15M calculation.
The wider enforcement figures are bigger. The ED says 116 accused have now been named across six chargesheets. Fourteen people have been arrested, ₹18.85 billion ($197.2 million) in assets have been attached and searches have covered 190 premises.
Pitti Plans to Contest the Allegations
Pitti said he had not been informed of the chargesheet or summoned by the court. He said his transactions complied with applicable law and that his assets came from lawful income, adding that he would contest the allegations.
Easy Trip Planners also said it had received no formal notice of legal proceedings against the company or Pitti. The case now moves to the court stage, where the ED is seeking confiscation of the attached shares and will have to support its allegations over the alleged Skyexchange-to-FPI money trail.