Hyderabad Police Nabs Mastermind in iBomma Piracy Ecosystem
Hyderabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar said the accused was found to be diverting lakhs of users from piracy websites to illegal betting platforms, which is a criminal operation leading to massive financial exploitation
Hyderabad: The Hyderabad cyber crime police achieved a major breakthrough by arresting the prime accused operating the iBomma and Bappam large-scale movie piracy network, which includes over 65 mirror websites responsible for causing thousands of crore in losses to the Telugu film industry.
Addressing a press conference, Hyderabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar said the accused was also found to be diverting lakhs of users from piracy websites to illegal betting platforms such as 1win, 1xbet, and others — a criminal operation that has led to massive financial exploitation of the public.
These arrests are the sequel of a comprehensive investigation into the piracy of new Telugu films namely “Kantara Chapter 1”, “Dude”, “Mirai” and etc. which have been uploaded onto the illegal websites: iBomma/Bappam and its extension websites.
Through the seizures made from the possession of the accused, about 21,000 movies in his hard disks were identified ranging from Hollywood to Tollywood including several languages ranging from The Godfather-1972 to OG-2025 spanning Hollywood, Bollywood, and Tollywood content.
During investigation, the police arrested three persons - Ravi Emandi (39), a web developer and resident of IDL Green Hills Road and native of Visakhapatnam. He is presently a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis Country.
Duddela Shivajee (27), a website Developer and Susarla Prashanth (27), a private employee, both natives of Nellore were also arrested in the case.
Explaining the modus operandi of the accused, Sajjanar explained that Ravi, leveraging technical expertise in web hosting and development, created the piracy website iBOMMA in 2019, marking the beginning of his piracy and betting promotion operations.
During the Covid-19 lockdown, the people were confined to their homes, work-from-home became the norm, and theatres were closed to prevent public gatherings. To watch new movies, the public had to subscribe to multiple OTT platforms, creating a financial burden for many households.
At this time, the iBOMMA website gained rapid popularity by offering newly released movies in high quality on a single platform free of cost. Millions of users began visiting the site for entertainment during lockdown restrictions. The website link spread widely through word of mouth, WhatsApp forwards, and various social media platforms.
iBOMMA allowed viewers to watch movies and web series within one of two days of release, from the comfort of their homes and along with their families. Its superior video quality compared to other piracy websites and torrent platforms made it highly appealing. As a result, iBOMMA became one of the most popular piracy websites, attracting approximately five million users per month.