Cricket betting racket busted; 20 held
Hyderabad: As many as 20 men were nabbed for being part of the cricket betting gangs of IPL, by Task Force and Special Operations Teams (SOT) from different locations.
A total of Rs 9 lakh were seized from these gangs along with gadgets and mobiles used for the offence. In the first case, the sleuths of SOT (Malkajgiri Zone), Rachakonda along with local police apprehended main organiser and bookie, Chintakindi Sai Kiran (30) and 11 others for organising cricket betting in Nacharam and also seized Rs 7 lakh cash, a laptop and other gadgets and 25 mobile phones from their possession. The gang consists of two assistant organizers, collection agent, while others are punters, besides the main bookie.
As per the details, Sai Kiran, a resident of Ahmed Nagar in Varasiguda who was into hotel business came in contact with cricket bookies and for the last three years is indulging in cricket betting.
He was working for a bookie named Agarwal of Rajasthan. In the previous year’s IPL matches, he assisted Agarwal who organised cricket betting from Goa. in this IPL season Sai Kiran started organising cricket betting on his own with the assistance of the same Rajasthan based bookie.
Sai Kiran contacted friends, punters and collected advance amounts from each punter ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 1 lakh. He has collected about Rs 10 lakh in advance from more than 100 punters for playing cricket betting online with him.
“Sai Kiran procured unauthorised SIMs and employed Chitikela Srikanth and Praveen Kumar to assist him for organising cricket betting on monthly salary basis of Rs 20,000,” said Syed Rafeeq, Additional DCP, SOT Rachakonda. On tip-off the SOT Malkajgiri Zone along with Nacharam police conducted a raid at Habsiguda and busted the gang. The raid was led by Inspector SOT, G Naveen Kumar and B Vittal Reddy, Inspector Nacharam.
Meanwhile, two other gangs comprising of five and two members respectively were busted by Hyderabad’s Task Force under Humayun Nagar and Langar Houz police station limits.
Bookies were identified as Md Hameed, 40, a resident of Shaikpet and M Venu Gopal, a resident of Hydershakote near Sun City. The police also seized Rs 1.72 lakh from these gangs, along with TVs, a laptop and other gadgets.