Two bookies arrested for online betting in Warangal; Rs 2 Crores seized

Hyderabad: The Kakatiya University Police(KUC) on 29th November arrested two bookies for online betting on cricket and three-piece poker at the Mumbai headquarters under the Warangal Police Commissionerate.

The accused are identified as Madishetti Prasad from Vijayanagar Colony, Hanamkonda district in Telangana, and Abhay Vilas Rao Petkar, a resident of Choria Township, Yavatmal district, Maharashtra.

Police seized about Rs 2 crore 5 lakh 14 thousand in cash, 7 cell phones, 43 passbooks, and ATM cards belonging to various banks.

According to the Warangal Police Commissioner Tarun Joshi, the accused Abhay wanted to make easy money as it was difficult to support his family through this clothing business. He started cricket betting in 2016 with a few other friends. He made a lot of money through this betting and in the year 2018, he started betting cricket online on his smartphone through his friends.

It was during this sequence that the accused Prasad got acquainted with Abhay, the manager of an online betting website for cricket and three-piece poker at the Mumbai center. Through this introduction, Prasad became fully aware of the betting and he was appointed as the online betting bookie in the two Telugu states of the online betting website.

The winners of the betting will be awarded double the amount of money wagered. Defendant Prasad provided the rest of the money except the commission. In this way, Prasad trades the profits after the day-to-day transactions and hands them over to Abhay.

Prasad maintained bank accounts in benami names to handle these money transactions. Particularly since the entire online betting business was in the hands of the perpetrators, the trio was encouraged to win the first bet and win a large sum of money.

Prasad was arrested by the Ramachandrapuram police in 2019 under the Chandanagar and Cyberabad Commissionerates of the Hyderabad Commissionerate while he was conducting online betting.

After his release from jail, Prasad shifted his residence to Hanmakonda, where his mother-in-law resides so that the police would not find out if he was conducting online betting again in Hyderabad.

The suspects, who are not based in Hanamkonda, defrauded the public by betting heavily on the IPL, T20-20 World Cup, and three-piece poker online, depositing the proceeds of the betting into bank accounts in various names and buying various properties.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under the Central Zone DCP Pushpa jointly investigated and identified the culprits in the complaint lodged against the fraudsters.