New Delhi:
Bets worth up to Rs 5,000 crore have been placed on the final match of Champions Trophy to be held in Dubai on Sunday, sources said.
India is the favourite team of international bookies, sources who have been tracking betting rings said. Many of the bookies are linked to the underworld, they said, adding big bookies from all over the world gather in Dubai during every big match.
Dawood Ibrahim’s gang ‘D Company’ is involved in betting on big cricket matches in Dubai, sources said.
At least five big bookies have been arrested during the Champions Trophy by Delhi Police’s Crime Branch. They placed bets on the semi-finals. Their interrogation led to the investigation reaching Dubai.
In one case, two bookies identified as Parveen Kochhar and Sanjay Kumar, were arrested for betting on the India-Australia Champions Trophy semi-final match.
Both were caught red-handed while placing live bets using laptops and mobile phones. The police recovered several electronic devices and items used in betting.
Parveen Kochhar bought a master ID from a betting website called lucky.com, used it to create betting IDs, and sold them to punters. The syndicate charged 3 per cent commission on every transaction.
For offline betting, the accused used phone calls and made entries in a notepad depending on the betting rates.
Parveen Kochhar rented a house for Rs 35,000 per month to run the betting business for the last two years, sources said. He made a profit of Rs 40,000 on every match day. During questioning, he said this entire network is controlled from Dubai.
Who are the other big bookies?
Chhotu Bansal: A resident of west Delhi, he developed a betting app in Canada. He is living in Dubai now. Others took his app on rent and started using it to place bets.
Vinay: A resident of Delhi’s Moti Nagar, he is also in Dubai. He used to give feedback directly from the cricket ground.
Others from Delhi who are involved in this syndicate have been identified as Bobby, Golu, Nitin Jain, and Jitu.
Three of the five arrested from Delhi are Manish Sahani, Yogesh Kukeja, and Suraj, all linked to Dubai. The police recovered Rs 22 lakh in cash from them.
Manish Sahani was the main operator of the gang. He would record voices of the people participating in betting and manage transactions through bank accounts or cash. He told police he did not involve any middleman and controlled the entire betting operation himself.
During interrogation, the three accused said Mannu Matka, Akshay Gehlot, Nishu, Rinku, and Aman Rajput developed the ‘Satta’ betting app outside India.
