Raipur. (04:05): Raipur Police carried out their biggest IPL betting crackdown yet, arresting 26 bookies from three states. The betting was facilitated through various apps like Mahadev Panel, Reddy 67, and Laser 10. The police seized laptops and mobile phones containing transactions worth over Rs 30 crore.
The operation unfolded with raids on flats in Pune, where eight bookies were caught. These bookies were operating from flats in Bharati Vidyapeeth and Rajdeep Apartment areas of Pune.
Undercover officers from the Anti Crime and Cyber Unit surveilled the locations for seven days, posing as milkmen, vegetable vendors, and paper vendors. Once all suspects were present, simultaneous raids were conducted.
In total, 26 individuals were apprehended from the flats, engaged in online betting using laptops and mobile phones. The bookies revealed their modus operandi, mentioning the use of various IDs like Reddy 67, Mahadev 149, and Laser 10 for online betting, with the involvement of a history-sheeter named Pappu Jethwani.
Naveen Vaidya from Raipur, Pintu from Korba, and Nayan from Champa were identified as associates of Murali and Pintu, who are suspected to be in Dubai.
Police seized 11 laptops, 98 mobile phones, and other items from the bookies, along with approximately Rs 25 lakh in cash. Transactions worth over Rs 30 crore were detected from the seized devices, along with data on over 1,000 players.
The bookies have been charged under Section 4(a) of the Gambling Act and Section 7 of the Gambling Prohibition Act 2022, along with sections 420, 120B IPC, Section 25C of the Indian Telegraph Act, and Section 66C of the IT Act.
Here is the list of the arrested accused:
- Rahul Kolhatkar, 21, Balaghat, M.P.
- Sameer Meshram alias Bablu, 20, Mohla Manpur, Chhattisgarh.
- Anurag Dahriya, 22, Chhindwara, M.P.
- Akshat Dubey, 25, Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
- Sahil Sahu, 21, Korba, Chhattisgarh.
- John Singh, 20, Durg, Chhattisgarh.
- Shekhar Wadhwani, 24, Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
- Devesh Sachdev, 20, Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
- Sahit Parate, 22, Balaghat, M.P.
- Arpit Chhabra, 35, Durg, Chhattisgarh.
- Rohit Yadav, 25, Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh.
- Mithun Chauhan, 38, Janjgir Champa, Chhattisgarh.
- Saurabh Shukla alias Babu, 27, Durg, Chhattisgarh.
- Hiresh Kumar, 22, Korea, Chhattisgarh.
- Mayank Lohani, 30, Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh.
- Ravi Telwani, 48, Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
- Vishal Kumar, 22, Janjgir Champa, Chhattisgarh.
- Aashay Shinde, 27, Durg, Chhattisgarh.
- Ashish Pahuja, 39, Korba, Chhattisgarh.
- Rahul Preetwani, 36, Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
- Kamal Singh, 20, Surajpur, Chhattisgarh.
- Ansh Bhatti, 19, Durg, Chhattisgarh.
- Sujal Ruparela, 18, Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
- Shashank Kumar Rai, 46, Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
- Bhunesh Kumar, 26, Hamirpur, U.P.
- Akshat Dhankar, 26, Durg, Chhattisgarh.
The operation was conducted by Anti-Crime and Cyber Unit in-charge Paresh Pandey, along with several other officers including Sub-Inspector Satish Puriya, Kishore Seth, Mohd. Qayyum, Premraj Barik, Nohar Deshmukh, Chintamani Sahu, Sarfaraz Chishti, Mahendra Rajput, Moh. Sultan, Ravikant Pandey, Kripasindhu Patel, Jaswant Soni, Himanshu Rathore, Anil Rajput, Rajik Khan, Dilip Jangde, Mahipal Singh, Santosh Sinha, Dhananjay Goswami, Suresh Deshmukh, Nitesh Rajput, Lalesh Nayak, and Babita Dewangan.
