The Raipur police has busted an illegal online betting gang which was carrying out operations in the name of Mahadev Book and Anna Reddy. The main accused are Piyush Hirani, Harish Kumar and Nikhil Singh.
For a long time police were getting reports about an illegal online betting app and after confirmation about the hideout the police team conducted a raid and arrested 23 people.
The three main accused were working together with 20 other people in the gang that was arrested of which two are minors. The gang had rented three different places all in the name of Piyush for operating their business. The annual turnover from their betting app was around Rs. 35 crore.
According to some unconfirmed sources the mastermind behind the app returned to India recently from Dubai but as soon as he heard of his companions getting arrested he immediately returned to Dubai.
The police has registered the case against the accused mastermind and are looking for a way to apprehend him. It is assumed that if the arrests are not made the gambling app will continue to be operated.
During the arrest of other gang members the police seized 7 laptops, 26 mobile phones, 13 betting related account books, 11 cheque books, 3 passbooks, 1 ATM card and Rs. 10 lakh in cash with about Rs. 73,500 from the bookies.
During the interrogation the police found out that the arrested Piyush Hirani, Harish Kumar, Nikhil Singh and their 20 associates were mostly college and school students and were getting paid Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 20,000 each per month for working there.
An app was created for the purpose of illegal gambling that provided options for betting on different types of games like football, cricket, ludo, poker, casinos, etc. The betting app was promoted to potential users via different download links and after creating their accounts the app users could start betting on different games.