A major online Indian Premier League (IPL) betting syndicate was busted in Odisha’s Jharsuguda district, police said on Thursday.
According to police, two persons- Harish Sahu and Akhil Azizi Motivala- have been arrested and cash to the tune of Rs 6.8 lakh seized from their possession. Both the accused were nabbed following a raid by a team of Jharsuguda police at a building located at Goshala Chhak last evening.
The raid was conducted based on intelligence input regarding an organised crime in the form illegal online betting racket on IPL being operated in Jharsuguda town and other parts of Western Odisha. The accused Harish and Akhil were caught red-handed from the basement area of the building. The duo used to carry out the IPL betting racket by collecting money from different persons.
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The betting was mostly carried out through several websites- www.skyexchange.com, skyinplay.com and others. Apart from Rs 6.8 lakh in cash, police have also seized several bank accounts and other incriminating articles during the raid.
According to police, the accused used to play on various online betting websites which were managed by Admins, who created a number of stockists under them while several distributors are under the control of stockists.
“Distributor has to create a number of sellers/retailers, who used to collect money from the general public to bet online in those websites. The entire online betting system has been formed in a pyramid structure. In this way, all the layers of the pyramid conspired and collected a huge sum of money from the general public to bet online in IPL cricket with a false assurance of getting a profitable margin of return,” police said in a release.
Earlier, a major IPL betting racket was busted by Berhampur police in the month of October 2020. Two persons, identified as R Lalie Achary and K Prasant Kumar Subudhi were arrested with a cash of Rs 33.61 lakh.
Preliminary investigation by the Berhampur police into the IPL betting syndicate revealed that the conduits were in close touch with bookies across major cities in the country as well as Dubai.
Southern Range Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), Satyabrata Bhoi had said that the kingpin of the syndicate, identified as Lalie Achari, was in close touch with bookies in different parts of the country including Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai. A distant Dubai connection had also emerged during the probe then.
(Edited By Ramakant Biswas