Hyderabad: Three gangs involved in online cricket betting arrested

The Hyderabad police seized Rs. 1.84 crore cash, 36 mobile phones, three laptops and other gadgets from them on Wednesday.

Hyderabad: Three interstate gangs involved in organising online cricket betting were arrested by the Cyberabad police on Wednesday. The police seized Rs. 1.84 crore cash, 36 mobile phones, three laptops and other gadgets from them.

In the first case, the Special Operations Team (Shamshabad) caught Podapati Narsing Rao (31) of SR Nagar and a native of Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh, who was organising cricket betting through mobile phone based applications.

---

“Narsing Rao is a sub bookie and on the instructions of Ganapathi Reddy of Bengaluru and Srinivas Raju of East Godavari, was organising betting. The punters were provided access to the mobile phone-based apps after they paid money through online or offline mode,” said Cyberabad Police Commissioner, Stephen Raveendra. The police seized Rs. 60 lakh cash and Rs. 32 lakh deposited in various banks were frozen.

In the other case, the Special Operations Team (Rajendranagar) caught two persons V Ravi Raju (45) and B Prasad Raju (40), for allegedly organising online cricket betting and seized Rs. 71.50 lakh in cash apart from freezing an amount of Rs. 7.37 lakh deposited in various bank accounts. The duo was organising betting through mobile phone based applications.

In the third case, the Special Operations Team (Balanagar) caught K Vinod Kumar (32) who along with Lingam alias Linga Raju of AP was organising cricket betting. The police seized an amount of Rs. 7.52 lakh in cash, 17 mobile phones and other gadgets from him.

The entire operation was supervised by DCP Special Operations Team, MA Rasheed.

Stephen Raveendra asked people of Hyderabad not to fall victims of the online cricket betting as it only results in losses to the punters while the bookies (organisers) benefitted. “There is also scope of cyber theft of data which again could be used to commit financial frauds and blackmailing using personal photos and data,” he cautioned.