New Delhi: An alleged IPL cricket betting syndicate was busted in Outer Delhi's Rohini area with the arrest of four men including the kingpin of the gang who is a mechanical engineer, police said today. The accused, identified as Rakesh Sethi (45), Bantu Nagpal (33), Sanjay Hasija (32) and Vishu Sethi (22) were arrested from a house by the Crime Branch during its crackdown against betting syndicates operating during the ongoing IPL season.
“We have recovered 40 mobile phones, one TV set, a mobile signal booster, one laptop, printer, voice recorder along with notebooks for entering the bets from the accused,” said Joint commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav. An information was received by police that there will be betting on IPL cricket league match to be played between Sunrises Hyderabad and Mumbai Indians on Wednesday. It was also learnt that the racketeers also provides betting lines to other bookies.
“On a tip off that a betting racket is being run from H.No. 86, Green Hill Apartment, Pocket-1, Sec-23 in Rohini an immediate raid was conducted after fulfilling necessary legal formalities and the four persons were nabbed,” said Yadav. It was learnt that accused Rakesh Sethi is a Mechanical Engineer. The accused persons were accepting bets in person as well as through mobile phones. They were also providing lines to several other bookies.
Three mobiles phones were being used as ‘Dabba' to broadcast rates to the bookies, police said. “The betting amount in the match till the time of the raid was Rs 25 lakh approximately and the gang has so far accepted betting amount to the tune 1 crore in the ongoing IPL season. On integration, the accused persons disclosed that they used to put bets on cricket matches. Subsequently, they decided to work as bookies as well as to provide betting lines to small bookies,” said Yadav.
The accused persons were earlier operating from Sonipat, Haryana but local police was suspicious about their activities so they decided to shift to Rohini area to run their operations in rented premises so that their activities remain unnoticed in a new locality.
