Royal Oman Police apprehended the billionaire fugitive travelling on a fake passport, prompting New Delhi to formally request his immediate extradition.

Raipur, July 8 — Omani border control stopped Sourabh Chandrakar, the 30-something architect of India’s ₹6,000 crore betting syndicate, as he tried to cross their border on Wednesday using a forged Southeast Asian passport. The Royal Oman Police didn’t hesitate to throw him into immediate custody based on a lingering Interpol red notice. Officials in New Delhi aren’t wasting a second. They’ve already scrambled their diplomatic teams to draft a formal extradition request to drag the fugitive back to Indian soil.

And this time, Indian agencies swear they won’t let him slip away. Chandrakar previously dodged a major bullet in October 2024 when United Arab Emirates authorities briefly confined him to his Dubai residence. Indian diplomats sent a frantic extradition request during that window, but intelligence officials admit the UAE essentially ignored it. He and his partner Ravi Uppal haven’t faced a courtroom since fleeing Chhattisgarh for the Gulf back in 2019. The Enforcement Directorate claims they’ve spent the ensuing years building an illicit network that runs 3,200 betting panels across multiple cities, pulling in an astonishing ₹240 crore every single day. Why did it take law enforcement years to finally corner a man generating that kind of heat?

The sheer scale of the enterprise explains his prolonged evasion. The man who now moves billions began his career running a modest business that locals knew as ‘Juice Factory’ alongside his brother in the industrial town of Bhilai. He traded his juice stand for 20 luxury villas in Dubai, renting the massive properties to house a dedicated staff of 3,500 people who managed betting operations around the clock. The syndicate hasn’t restricted its scope to standard sports. They’ve allowed users to place illegal wagers on poker, badminton, tennis, and even the outcomes of national elections. The Enforcement Directorate didn’t just track the digital footprint; investigators chased the massive flow of cash. The agency filed a fresh complaint in June 2026 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, successfully securing the provisional attachment of properties and assets worth ₹940.77 crore.

It’s a staggering volume of illicit wealth.

The web of corruption they’ve woven stretches deep into the Indian political establishment. The Central Bureau of Investigation and the ED haven’t stopped digging into the syndicate’s ties to public servants in Raipur, including formal allegations against former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel. The ED hasn’t waited for his capture to move forward; they’ve already arrested 11 individuals and filed two comprehensive charge sheets. The operation didn’t just enrich the founders. It allegedly funnelled hundreds of crores to politicians and local bureaucrats who promised to keep investigators away. Chandrakar even flaunted his wealth in February 2023, dropping an estimated ₹200 crore in pure cash on his wedding in Ras Al Khaimah, hiring private jets to ferry relatives from India and paying Bollywood celebrities to perform.

But Chandrakar’s luck has seemingly run out, even as his partner remains a ghost. Diplomatic sources confirm that Ravi Uppal vanished from the UAE late last year after local authorities abruptly closed the extradition proceedings against him. Officials familiar with the current Oman operation told RootsAlert that India’s existing bilateral extradition treaty with Muscat provides a rock-solid legal framework to secure Chandrakar. He can’t simply walk out the back door as he did in Dubai, because Omani border security hasn’t shown any leniency toward the fraudulent travel documents he used. A trial in India will finally expose the criminal network that hasn’t just rigged games of chance, but allegedly bought off the exact people who swore to dismantle it.