Online cricket betting racket busted in Vizag; 3 techies among 4 held

Visakhapatnam: Even though the police intensified a crackdown on cricket betting, some tech-savvy youngsters continued to promote illegal online cricket betting activities through social media, luring the gullible youth promises of easy money through betting operations. The police observed that tech-savvy youngsters attracted punters through the Telegram app.26-year-old Gudivada Abhiram (claiming as prediction analyst), a resident of Gajuwaka locality and involved in business, was arrested by cybercrimes police in Vizag city on April 15 for promoting illegal online cricket betting portal www.southbook.in through his Telegram channel named Mastermind Prediction. A few days ago, two brothers— Vana Sai Ganesh (25) , working as a basketball coach at a private college in Vizag city and Vana Anil Kumar ( 29), both were residents of the Madhurawada locality in Vizag city were arrested for allegedly promoting illegal online cricket betting activities through social media and luring the youth with promises of easy money through betting operations. A senior police officer in Vizag city cybercrimes police station said, they have arrested four persons, including three BTech graduates—Desineni Sumanth alias Nani (25), a native of Tirupati and L Ganesh (27), K Murali (21), and M Bhadreswar Reddy (22), all from Guntur district for creating Telegram channels and promoting the illegal cricket betting apps in January this year. Driven by the lure of easy money, unemployed tech-savvy youngsters are creating Telegram channels, promoting and gaining followers. Later, they are promoting the Dubai based online cricket betting websites and earning thousands to lakhs of rupees by luring the gullible youth towards the betting operations, said a senior police officer. The fraudsters are also sharing some predictions of the cricket matches through their channels to draw the attention of the punters. Most of the youngsters are losing lakhs of rupees on betting operations, and few of them are taking extreme steps, the police added. Recently a youngster from Vizag city believed the promotions (cricket predictions) on social media and participated in cricket betting by expecting good returns. However, he lost more than Rs12.5 lakh and approached Vizag cybercrimes police station seeking action against the cricket prediction analysts. Vizag city police chief Dr Shankabrata Bagchi appealed to the Vizagites to pass any information about the advertisements and promotions of cricket betting websites on social networking platforms to police to nab the fraudsters.