Hyderabad: The Enforcement Directorate will be stepping in to investigate money laundering and related financial violations by iBomma website mastermind, Immadhi Ravi.
The Hyderabad police arrested Ravi on Monday after he arrived in the city from France.
Ravi, the mastermind behind the iBomma/Bappam piracy ecosystem, had data of 50 lakh subscribers and about 21,000 movies on his hard disks. He was involved in the piracy of new film releases, causing a massive loss to the film industry.
According to police, through this illegal ecosystem of piracy and betting promotions, the accused earned approximately Rs 20 crore. With the proceeds, he purchased plots and flats and maintained a balance of Rs 3.5 crore in his bank account, which has now been frozen by the police.
Ravi maintained two accounts, NRE and NRI bank accounts. The relatives and friends of Ravi will be investigated in the case.
Further analysis is underway to trace additional funds held in foreign accounts and cryptocurrency wallets.
Ravi completed his B.Sc. in Computers and later moved to Mumbai, where he worked in private companies and completed an MBA. After returning to Hyderabad in 2010, he established ER Infotech, a web services firm specializing in domain registration, hosting, and website development.
Observing the high demand for online streaming, he conceived the idea of creating a free high-quality movie website, earning revenue through advertisements. Simultaneously, he noticed the rapid growth of online gaming and betting platforms and identified them as highly profitable for advertisement partnerships. Leveraging his technical expertise in web hosting and development, he created the piracy website iBOMMA in 2019, marking the beginning of his piracy and betting promotion operations.
