With the arrest of an online betting racket kingpin based out of Kolkata, the Guntur Rural police are hoping to get to the roots of the online betting network spread across the country.
Abhir Chanda, 33, who was arrested by the police in Kolkata, was the kingpin of one of the biggest online betting rackets in the country, said Superintendent of Police, Guntur Rural, S.V. Rajasekhara Babu.
“Online betting is not only limited to cricket but also has spread to other games like football, tennis, horse racing and grey hounds race.
Since betting is banned in India, the organisers are developing websites that looked similar to the popular ones abroad and carrying out their operations,” said Mr. Babu.
The police are on the lookout for another accused, Sayan Ghosh. Besides ₹22 lakh, the police also seized a number of laptops and mobile phones from the accused.
The arrests followed leads in the case registered on the basis of a complaint by Anakalla Udaya Bhanu in Sattenapalli. The police arrested Pasupuleti Nagarjuna and on questioning him, apprehended the remaining persons. Following leads given by local punters, the special team tracked the whereabouts of betting kingpins.
The trail of arrests beginning with Nagarjuna, continued with the arrest of Avadish Pratap Singh and others.
The police claim that Sayan Ghosh is an expert in designing betting websites. They summoned Ghosh for questioning and are awaiting his reply.
Modus operandi
Explaining the modus operandi, Mr. Babu said the accused got in touch with software experts who designed websites and worked as administrators of websites. Under them, there were master developers and bookies in main cities. The accused got applications developed and upload into websites. For instance, the accused created two web portals, lotus.com and dreamech.com. Their local contacts drew traffic to the websites for betting through various Whatsapp groups.
The SP announced rewards for DSP, Sattenapalli, Kalesha Vali, CI Mallikarjuna Rao, Taskforce CI Vijaya Krishna, Piduguralla CI Veerendra Babu and other team members.
14 nabbed
Anantapur Special
Correspondent adds:
The Anantapur One Town police on Monday arrested 14 persons for participating and conducting cricket betting in the city on Sunday night.
The One-Town circle inspector Yugandhar, at a press conference here, said three bookies were collecting money from public for predicting outcome of every ball in the Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians final match at Hyderabad.
The police confiscated ₹14.21 lakh in cash, three cell phones and some quantity of ganja they were selling from a burial ground. In addition to the three bookies, 11 students and other persons participating in the betting were also arrested.
