Hyderabad: Rachakonda SOT sleuths busted two IPL betting rackets and arrested 10 persons, including a software engineer, operating in two different gangs on the city's outskirts.
The police also seized Rs 9.90 lakh, a laptop and three mobile phones from them. The arrested persons are K. Nagaraju, the organiser-cum-bookie, K. Chandrashekar, a lab technician, T. Srinivas, an employee of a private firm, K. Subbarao, a compounder in a private hospital, G. Raju and M. Santosh Kumar, both punters and Venkateswarlu, a line operator. One Uday Kumar is absconding.
In Kushaiguda, the arrested persons are B. Ravikanth, the bookie, Y. Suman, an agent and a techie, Y. Sridhar, an agent, Y. Pramod, a punter. Punters Anjaneyulu Goud and Chintu are absconding.
Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagawat said that B. Ravikanth, the kingpin of the gang operating from Kushaiguda was working as a cameraman in the film industry. While working in the film industry, he developed contacts with bookies and started betting on cricket matches. Gradually he learnt the tricks of betting, turned a bookie and started organizing bettings.
“He had been operating from the first match of the IPL 10 season and used his distant relative Sridhar, a techie, as an agent to collect money from punters. He had an agent in each locality of the city and monitored them from his flat in Manikonda,” the commissioner said. In the other case, K. Chandrashekar, T. Srinivas and K. Subbarao were inviting bets during matches.
