Pune Police Bust IPL Betting Racket, Ten Arrested in Kothrud Raid

The Pune city police have apprehended ten accused for allegedly accepting bets on the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket matches in Kothrud. Accordingly, an FIR has been registered under sections 34, 420, and 25 (C) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections 4(a) and 5 of the Maharashtra Prevention of Gambling Act against the accused.

According to the police, the accused, Mukesh Kumar Shailendra Prasad Sahu (age 24), Devendra Kamlesh Kumar Yadav (age 21), Jaswant Bhushanlal Sahu (age 22), Rahul Kumar Ganesh Yadav, Rohit Kumar Ganesh Yadav (age 26), Dushyant Komalsingh Sonkar (age 23), Akhilesh Ruparam Thakur (age 24) and Mohammad Mamnoon Ismail Saudagar (age 32, all resident of Chhattisgarh) and Sandeep Raju Meshram (age 21), Amit Kailas Shendge (age 32) were arrested by the police and items worth Rs 2 lakh 20 thousand 500 including mobile phones and laptops have been seized from them in the raid on March 13 from Right Bhusari Colony in Kothrud area of Pune by the Anti-Extortion Squad Unit 1 of Pune Crime Branch.

As per the police, the police received a tip-off regarding a group accepting online bets on the IPL match in flat number S5 of Patel Terrace building in Right Bhusari Colony in Kothrud. Accordingly, officers of the Anti-Extortion Squad Unit 1 of the Crime Branch formed a team and raided the place at around 9:30 p.m. The police entered the flat as the door was half opened, as mentioned in the FIR and found ten people in the bedroom of the flat, out of which two people were using laptops and eight others were using mobile phones.

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When the police asked the accused, Rahulkumar Yadav about their activities he confessed to accepting online bets on cricket matches, casinos, and ludo. The accused created an online login ID and password for punters willing to bet on the matches and sent the bank details to deposit the bet money and the login ID, and password on their WhatsApp number. When the customer deposits the money in the bank account, they add coins to their online ID, where customers can bet on websites like laser247.com, reddybook.blue, Cricbet99.com, play247.win, 11xplay.com and play99exch.com. When the police investigated the laptops on the crime scene, they found reddybook.blue page on the search engine, which was logged out. When the police asked about the website, the accused, Sandeep Raju Meshram, informed them that the operators change the login ID and password of the website if the site is inactive for 10 minutes. The police have arrested the accused and further probe is underway.