iBomma Ravi
Hyderabad: Immadi Ravi, an alleged movie piracy website operator, was granted partial relief by a Nampally court, which allowed him to use his bank accounts after he complained that he was unable to support his family.
The court, however, refused to release the Rs 3 crore in his accounts, which was frozen by the Special Investigation Team.
Ravi, also known as iBomma Ravi, is the alleged operator of iBomma, which caused crores in losses to the Telugu film industry.
He was arrested by the Central Crime Station (CCS) Police from an apartment in Kukatpally in mid-November 2025, shortly after arriving in Hyderabad from France.
He spent close to 90 days in Chanchalguda jail before Justice K. Sujana of the Telangana High Court granted him conditional bail on February 17 this year. He walked out the following day. The Nampally court had earlier rejected his bail plea.
Meanwhile, the High Court granted bail with stringent conditions to ensure his cooperation with the investigation. He was directed to appear before the investigating officer daily until the charge sheet is filed, surrender his passport, not leave the country, refrain from operating any piracy-related online platform and avoid contacting witnesses or co-accused. Any violation, the court warned, would result in his bail being cancelled.
According to the police, Ravi set up iBomma in 2019, drawing on a background in web hosting and development, and the platform’s popularity surged during the COVID-19 lockdown as it offered newly released films in high definition for free. He is alleged to have expanded the operation with a second site, Bappam, in 2022.
Hyderabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar told a press conference after the arrest that the network ran across more than 65 mirror websites, with domains rotated and traffic masked to evade blocking by authorities and servers hosted in the Netherlands and Switzerland. Investigators said hard drives seized from Ravi held around 21,000 films across multiple languages, along with data on some 50 lakh subscribers.
Beyond piracy itself, police allege the operation funnelled large numbers of users from the piracy portals to illegal online betting platforms, generating revenue through betting advertisements hosted on the sites. Cybercrime officials have said they traced transactions of around Rs 13 crore in the case, with his total earnings estimated at roughly Rs 20 crore. Investigators have also alleged that Ravi obtained identity documents in other people’s names, including a driving licence and PAN card, which were used to open bank accounts.
Cases have been registered against him under provisions of the Information Technology Act and the Copyright Act. Police have described the network as having caused losses running into thousands of crores to the Telugu film industry, and called the arrest a significant breakthrough in their crackdown on digital piracy.
Two of his associates had been arrested earlier in September 2025.
This post was last modified on September 25, 2026 4:24 pm