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Visakhapatnam: Police unearth sophisticated betting racket in city, arrest nine persons
The Hindu
Bank accounts were opened with fake addresses, say police; transactions worth crores done by accused in the past three months
The Visakhapatnam City Police busted a sophisticated online betting racket and arrested nine persons in the city on Wednesday.
The betting racket was being run from an upscale apartment in Kirlampudi Layout, police said. The kingpin of the racket was identified as K. Kishore (26), hailing from Bhilai, Chhattisgarh. He had set up base in the city, and had hired a posse of eight persons—all aged between 20 and 31 years, to assist him in running the betting racket.
Of the eight accomplices, five hailed from Chhattisgarh, while one person each was from Odisha, Anakapalli and Vizag.
Police seized four laptops, 16 mobile phones, a Wi-Fi router and other equipment from the accused.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, Commissioner of Police Ch. Srikanth said that Kishore paid ₹10 lakh as deposit to a bookie, identified as Rahul based in Chhattisgarh, and acquired ‘hosting services’ to run the online betting racket. As per their agreement, Kishore would keep 10% of the profits and the remaining would go to Rahul.
Mr. Srikanth said that the bookies reach out to their target audience through posts and ads on various social media sites. Once an interested person makes contact, they are asked to pay a fee to receive login credentials for an app, through which bets can be placed.
“The app is designed in such a way that it would allow the customer to win initially in small amounts to get them hooked. Gradually, they will start betting bigger amounts of money, which they will start losing,” Mr Srikanth said.
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