Chennai: Cricket betting addict musician sells rented laptop, arrested

Chennai: A 21-year-old musician, addicted to wagering on domestic cricket in England, was arrested after his habit of stealing gadgets to sustain his losses came to light when he stole a high-configuration laptop to fund his betting.

The suspect, Yashwanth Raja (21), resident of Palaiyakaratheru, Kodambakkam, preferred a complaint with Ashok Nagar police citing that the Apple laptop he had rented was stolen from his bike parked near the police station while he withdrew money from an ATM in the vicinity, on June 4.

Kishore, who runs a laptop rental service for post-production work in tinsel town, had rented the device worth Rs 5 lakhs to Yashwanth. Upon learning about the complaint, Kishore sensed foul play and ran an online search for Yashwanth’s mobile number.

The search fetched as many as 28 articles including laptops, mobiles, cameras, and music rendering system among other gadgets advertised for sale in the online classified trading website OLX.

Alarmed, Kishore approached the Ashok Nagar police who realised that Yashwanth was taking them for a ride. The cops played along with Yashwanth and contacted him while posing as OLX users looking for laptops similar to what he had listed for sale.

A verification of the address provided by Yashwanth as his was traced to a recording studio. An inquiry in the studio revealed that a music rendering system, a couple of laptops and a mobile phone had gone missing and those were among articles listed for sale by Yashwanth.

Yashwanth used to make excuses to stay up late in the studio and work, which is when he would decamp with gadgets without being noticed. Due to the high volume of gadgets in the studio, the missing articles would not come to light until stock taking time.

A look into the texts of Yashwanth’s mobile phone revealed his betting interest. He had also earlier placed bets in the recently concluded IPL matches.

Yashwanth, yet to make it big in Kollywood, had worked in the BGM of Jithan – 2, and few other small projects.