IPL betting racket busted; three men held, search on for another

The police in Maharashtra’s Thane district have busted an IPL betting racket by conducting a raid at a hotel in Bhiwandi, and arrested three persons hailing from Chhattisgarh in this connection, an official said. The operation was conducted jointly by the officials of the Special Task Force and the Anti-Extortion Cell of the Thane police’s crime branch on April 25, Deputy Commissioner of Police Shivraj Patil said in a press conference on Friday evening.

Efforts are on to trace one more accused, who partnered with the arrested trio and operated the racket from Chhattisgarh, he said. ”The police had received a tip-off that some persons were inviting people to place their bets on the ongoing IPL cricket matches. Accordingly, a raid was conducted at a hotel in Kongaon village in Bhiwandi between 7.30 pm and 11 pm on Thursday,” he said.

The accused trio was caught taking bets on the match between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Sunrisers Hyderabad. They were making use of the mobile applications and collected a total of Rs 11,86,811 from people, the official said. The fourth accused, who operated from Chhattisgarh, collected Rs 7,03,000 from people on the bets, he said.

”The trio had obtained SIM cards by forging documents. During the raids, the police seized 12 mobiles, one tablet and laptop each collectively valued at Rs 1.97 lakh from them,” Patil said.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Shekar Bagde said the police have launched an operation to nab the fourth who operated from Korba in Chhattisgarh.

The arrested accused were identified as Shannu Lalit Berival (31), Rajat Babula Sharma (30) and Vijay Sitaram Devgan (40), he said. A first information report (FIR) was registered under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 420 (cheating), 465, 467, 468, 471 (all pertaining to forgery) and 34 (common intention) at the Kongaon police station, the official said.