IPL betting racket busted in Hyderabad, 10 held

Hyderabad, April 11 Cyberabad police busted an online IPL cricket betting racket and arrested 10 bookies.

The arrests were made during a raid on a house in Bachupally on Monday during the IPL match between RCB and Lucknow SuperGiants.

Cyberabad Police Commissioner Stephen Ravindra told media persons that the SOT Balanagar Zone and Bachupally team of Cyberabad Police Commissionerate had been watching the illegal activity of Cricket betting rackets. On credible information, they jointly raided a house at Sai Anurag Colony in Bachupally.

He said 10 bookies were arrested and cash of Rs 60.39 lakh was seized. He said along with the amount in the bank accounts of the arrested, value of online cash and seized property, the total value of the case property is about Rs 1 crore.

The seized property include three line boards, 8 laptops, 3 TVs, 8 keypad phones, two CPUs, keyboards, monitor set top box, headsets, WiFi routers, printer, Microphones, 10 smart phones, three two-wheelers.

The bookies were booked under sections 3 and 4 of TS Gaming Act.

Pandu, the main organiser who is a resident of Vijayawada, is absconding. Four of the arrested men are from Andhra Pradesh while the remaining are all residents of Andhra Pradesh.

The arrested men are Y. Venkata Shivarama Krishna, Singmaneni Kiran Kumar, Nandam Srinivas Babu, Kadiyala Mahesh, Chereddy Kasi, Addepalli Prathap Gana Kumar, K.Vijay Kumar, G. Srikanth, A.Vinay and B.Venkata Ratna Kumar.

Police said due to digitalisation and lure to make quick bucks, some people have been lured to cricket betting. This is a vicious cycle which leads to constant addiction to betting money. Ultimately the bookie only makes money while punters lose money.

There is scope for Cyber theft of data from bank accounts and other personal data, which may result in unauthorized money transfer and blackmailing using personal photos, data etc, it said.