In two back-to-back raids on betting on the ongoing Indian Premier League matches, the Pimpri Chinchwad police’s crime branch has arrested five businessmen for allegedly acting as bookies and accepting bets through online applications.
In the first action, the sleuths from Unit 2 of the crime branch acted on a tip-off that some suspects were accepting bets on IPL matches at a flat in a residential society in the Wakad area. On Tuesday night, a flat was raided in a plush residential society in the Vijaynagar area of Kalewadi.
Police arrested two businessmen identified as Harish Dayaldas Gulani (46) and Kamal Gurumukhdas Sachdev (49), who were allegedly accepting bets from people through a phone-based betting application. “The probe suggests that they were taking bets on not just outcomes, but on what will happen on each ball. We have launched a search for accomplices of the two suspects,” said a crime branch officer.
The second raid was conducted on Wednesday night after the crime branch’s anti-extortion cell received a tip-off about an IPL betting racket running from Talegaon Dabhade in Maval taluka. A team from the cell raided an apartment at Lake Paradise Society in Talegaon Dabhade and arrested three businessmen for allegedly accepting bets on IPL matches.
The three arrested businessmen were identified as Romi Nihlani (36), Vinod Satija (32) and Lakhan Gurbani (24). Police said the trio were accepting bets through online applications.
