An international online cricket betting racket was busted in Uttar Pradesh’s Hapur on Tuesday. Two people were running this racket in the name of “Bigg Boss T20 Punjab League”.
Hapur Superintendent of Police Deepak Bhukar told ANI, “Two people have been arrested. They were organizing a fake T20 tournament in the name of ‘Bigg Boss T20 Punjab League’. He was streaming the matches live on YouTube through software.
Two people arrested in this case are Rishabh Kumar, resident of Gwalior and Shabbu Ahmed of Meerut. Bhukar said that Ashok Choudhary, a resident of Moscow, Russia, was the “mastermind” of this racket, which took place through a mobile app called “Crick Heroes”.
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“Interestingly, the look and feel of the match was highly professionalized, for which Ashok Choudhary, an operative from Russia, provided IT equipment and cricket gear. Rishabh’s job was to arrange the teams while Shabu identified good quality stadiums. During interrogation, Rishabh revealed that he would earn around Rs 50,000 for each match. The team players were also given payment for the matches,” said SP Bhukar.
According to police sources, Rishabh and Shabbu were the organizers of the betting, while the real control was with Russia. It was linked to a fake cricket league in Gujarat which was exposed a few days back.
“During interrogation, one name Asif Choudhary also came up, whose name also cropped up in the Gujarat case. He is currently based in Moscow”, said Bhukar.
In the Gujarat case, police have arrested Dawda Shoaib Abdulmajid, Saifi Mehmad Saqib Riazuddin (Meerut), Koli Mehmad Abubakar (Molipur) and Dawda Sadiq Abdulmajid (Molipur) from Molipur village. The police also declared Asif Mohammad as a wanted accused.
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The accused ran these rackets with proper planning as their YouTube handles and pictures looked exactly like those shown in the Indian Premier League (IPL). However, the police revealed that the Hapur and Gujarat cases seem to be just the tip of the iceberg as as per the investigation reports, the betting racket was spread across the cities and included sports other than cricket.
“We have learned that the matches have been telecast live in Meerut as well and talks are on to include other sports like volleyball,” Bhukar said.
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