Hyderabad: Task force police of East zone conducted simultaneous raids at four different places in twin cities and arrested twelve persons who allegedly involved in cricket betting
The police seized over 22 lakhs in two AXIS Bank accounts of Mahesh Maniyal, 22 mobile phones and other material.
The arrested were Mahesh Maniyal (49) from Bowenpally, S. Sai Kumar (37) from Bahadurpura, Vijay Kumar Agarwal (42) from West Marredpally, Raj Kumar Rathod (34) from S.R. Nagar, U. Vinod Kumar (58) from West Marredpally, Padala Mahesh and Raakicheran are absconding. Efforts were on to nab absconding persons including N. Mukesh Singh (49) from Rahimpura, Mangalhat; Chintala Srinivas (20) ; Kumal Singh (21); Surjeet Singh (28) and Prakash Singh (25).
Acting on a tip off, the East Zone Task Force Team, Hyderabad has conducted simultaneously raids on the hideouts of cricket bookies and collection agents while they were collecting betting amounts of yesterdays IPL cricket matches and apprehended 3-gangs at Marredpally, Mangalhat, Kachiguda, etc., and apprehended total (12) persons and seized net cash of Rs.15,50,000/- and found Rs.7,27,802/- betting amount in two AXIS Bank accounts of Mahesh Maniyal, 22-cell phones and other incriminating material from them.
Giving details of modus operandi of the gang the police said the accused confessed that the bookies arranged telephonic lines using connections and they give line numbers to the punters. In turn punters make calls to the bookies while the match is running and place their betting. While placing betting, Bookies note down the details of betting of punter and the conversation will also automatically gets recorded. After completion of match, bookies inform to their collection agents about the details of collection and distribution of amount that how much amount has to collect from a particular punter and how much amount has to give.
Based on that information the collection agents collect the money from losers and distribute the money to winners and the remaining amount i.e. profit will be given to Bookie. Sometimes punters directly send money to the Bookies to their bank accounts using Paytm, Net Banking, etc.
Some of the Bookies established their setups in other states such as Maharastra, Goa, Bangalore, etc., fearing about the police raids in Hyderabad. During the interrogation, the accused Mahesh Maniyal is R/o Old Bowenpally, Sec’badwho is bookie addicted to betting and earns easy money by organizing and accepting cricket bettings in Hyderabad during IPL cricket match season. He gives the game to one PadalaMahesh R/o Sindhi colony, Sec’badnow in Goa.PadalaMahesh has so many sub-bookies like Mahesh Maniyalin Twin cities.Mahesh Maniyal receives cricket betting rates from PadalaMahesh to his line number and he informs the same to his punters. After completion of match Mahesh Maniyal collects and distributes the winning and losing amountsthrough one Sai Kumar and Vijay Kumar @ Pappu, whom he appointed as collection agents and he hand over the profit amounts to PadalaMahesh. Some of his customers/punters used to send money to his AXIS Bank bearing accounts through Paytm, Net Banking, etc.Mahesh Maniyal was earlier arrested by Malakajgiri police in a similar case.
The accused Mukesh Singh confessed that he and his son Prakash Singh @ Sunny both are having good experience in running and accepting Cricket betting during cricket matches and Mukesh Singh was earlier arrested by Mangalhat PS in a similar offence. In this process, before starting of IPL cricket matches his son went to Maharastra and established cricket betting setup and started running and accepting cricket betting by providing 10-lines phone connections to his sub-bookies namely Kunal Singh, Surjeet Singh, etc and others and inform them about the betting rates and ratios and he pays good commission to them. As per the instructions of his son Prakash Singh @ Sunny, Mukesh Singh appointed one person by name Srinivas as a collection agent who collects and distributes the winning and losing amounts respectively from the sub-bookies and hand over the profits to Mukesh Singh.
The accused Pritesh R/o Bandlaguda, Hyderabad, confessed that, earlier he was arrested by Hussainialam PS in a cricket betting case. In this process he came into contact with two Bookies namely Raju and Rakesh both R/o Nagpur of Maharastra state. On their request, Pritesh joined them as they promised him to pay good commission. Further Pritesh appointed his brother-in-law by name Vinay Modi as a collection agent for collecting cricket betting amounts on salary basis. Pritesh and VinayModi collect and distribute the winning and losing amounts respectively from the punters and hand over the profits to Raju and Rakesh.
Subsequently, on credible information apprehended one person by name Gajanand Upadhyay R/o Afzalgunj, Hyderabad who was arrested by Afzalgunj PS in a similar offence in April-2017. Again he is accepting cricket bettings during cricket matches in Hyderabad city over cell phones for ongoing IPL Cricket matches from the known punters and his close friends in an organized manner and earning money illegally. He received betting rates information through Whatsapp and forwards the same information to his friends and known punters over cell phone and accepting betting directly and indirectly. (NSS)