IPL betting racket: Chhattisgarh cops arrest 26 persons from Pune

PTI

Raipur, May 4

The Chhattisgarh police have arrested 26 people from Maharashtra in connection with a racket involved in betting on IPL matches through online applications, including the Mahadev app, a senior police official said on Saturday.

A team from the anti-crime and cyber unit (ACCU) arrested the accused from two apartments in Pune, Raipur senior superintendent of police Santosh Singh said.

With this, the ACCU has apprehended 34 bookies in connection with a case registered under the Gambling Act and the Chhattisgarh Gambling (Prohibition) Act, 2022 at Ganj police station here, he said.

A joint team of the ACCU and Ganj police had recently raided a flat in Goa, arrested eight people involved in online betting on IPL matches and seized four laptops, a camera, a calculator, 27 mobile phones and other items, he said.

During interrogation, the accused revealed that their associates were involved in betting through the Mahadev app panel in Pune, Singh said.

A team of the ACCU Raipur, which was already in Maharashtra as a part of a probe in another case, conducted a recce of the two apartments in the Bharti Vidyapeeth area of Pune, posing as a vegetable vendor, milk and paper delivery boys for seven days before conducting the raid, he said.

“Twenty-six people indulging in online betting using laptops and mobile phones were arrested from the two flats,” he said.

Of the accused apprehended in Pune, 22 hail from different districts of Chhattisgarh, three were from Madhya Pradesh and one from Uttar Pradesh, he said.

The police have recovered 11 laptops, 98 mobile phones, a calculator and other items worth Rs 25 lakh from the accused, he said.

“The accused have revealed that they were operating through 67 ID panels/branches of the Reddy app, 149 panels of the Mahadev app and 10 panels of laser book. They had purchased each ID panel for Rs 35 lakh to Rs 50 lakh,” the official said.

The seized laptops and mobile phones revealed transactions worth Rs 30 crore, while information about 1,000 players involved in betting was also obtained from mobile phones and bank accounts, he said.

The official said the accused informed that they were associated with Pappu Jethwani, a history-sheeter from the Purani Basti area of Raipur, who is absconding, he said.

The police have also added charges under sections 420 (cheating) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act and IT Act in the case, the SP said.

The ACCU Raipur has arrested 57 people in nine cases of betting related to IPL matches so far this year, he added.

Notably, the Mahadev betting app came under scanner in 2022 after the Chhattisgarh police took action against it. Later, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) launched a probe into the app in a money laundering case last year.

The ED has filed two chargesheets in this case in the Raipur court, including one against the two promoters of the alleged illegal betting and gaming app Sourabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal.

The projected proceeds of crime in this case are about Rs 6,000 crore, according to the ED.

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