Rachakonda police’s special operations team in L.B. Nagar arrested five persons and recovered cash of ₹ 12. 5 lakh and other related material, reportedly while organising betting in the ongoing IPL cricket matches.
The raid, based on a tip-off, was conducted during the late hours of Friday in Vanasthalipuram police limits, where one bookie Devineni Chakravarthy, a real estate businessman, was organising the racket with sub-bookies and punters.
Police reported that Chakravarthy was working under a main bookie Appala Raju of Bheemavaram in Andhra Pradesh, and in Seetha Nagaram of East Godavari the betting amounts were being collected by his cousin N. Srinivas Uday Kumar.
It was also learned that the organisers were using Cricket Mazza app, to follow ball to ball coverage, match betting rates and pay ratio commissions. The punters were directed to Uday Kumar located in East Godavari to avoid police trail.
The organisers also shared with bookies two current accounts – Sri Venkateshwara Traders and Sri Lalitha Durga Traders for the payments. And the sub-bookies were earning a 3% commission in the whole game.
Following the raid at around 8.30 p.m. on Friday, when a cricket match was in progress, the police was able to recover ₹ 12.5 lakh cash, a laptop and several mobile phones. Police also identified seven accounts belonging to various banks and frozen funds to the tune of ₹ 96.78 lakh, allegedly part of the betting racket.
All the accused were booked under relevant sections of the Telangana Gaming Act.
