Hyderabad: Hyderabad police raided betting dens in Punjagutta and Mangalhat as the IPL tournament’s final match was being played on Sunday night and busted two big cricket betting rackets.
The police recovered around Rs 20 lakh from the gangs. The two gangs used over 100 phones and SIM cards to contact punters from various parts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. This is the 17th racket busted by the Hyderabad and Cyberabad police in this IPL season. Police said the first gang was active at Shreya Mansion in Somajiguda.
The organisers, Soma Raju and Vinod Kumar, hail from Bhimavaram and Nidadavolu in West Godavari, and had been organising betting rackets after the IPL matches began. The gang was using modern gadgets to make group calls with punters and to record their conversations.
“We got 76 old cellphones which were connected to line boxes and voice recorders. All phones were in auto answering mode. The calls of punters are controlled by the volume control in the line box. In that way they could talk to several punters at once and accept bets from them,” said commissioner’s task force additional DCP N. Koti Reddy.
After the raid, police seized the equipment and Rs 8.02 lakh. The gang had purchased around 100 Reliance SIM cards with the help of locals from Bhimavaram, Rajahmundry and Tanuku in West Godavari by providing fake names and address proofs.
The second gang was found active at New Agapura in Mangalhat. Rajesh Agarwal, 38, a trader from Goshamahal in Hyderabad and his friend Pavan Gupta, 32, from Hussainialam decided to start a cricket betting racket after they suffered huge business losses.
The police raided their den and seized Rs 12 lakh and mobile phones used for contacting punters who make bets. Police found the two organisers had created a detailed log of all the punters who had placed bets, their individual bets, the amounts involved and other details regarding them using excel sheet software in laptops.
