Four held in Vizag online cricket betting racket

The Visakhapatnam Cyber Crime Police have arrested four persons for allegedly promoting illegal online cricket betting platforms through Telegram channels and earning lakhs of rupees every month, police said.

The accused, all engineering graduates, were identified as Desineni Sumanth alias Nani, 25, from Tirupati district; Lankipalli Ganesh, 27, from Chittoor district; Koppolu Murali, 21, from Guntur district; and Madam Badreshwar Reddy, 22, also from Guntur district.

Police said the four had earlier suffered heavy losses ranging between ₹1.5 crore and ₹3 crore each in online cricket betting. In a bid to recover the money, they allegedly turned cricket prediction analysts and later came into contact with Dubai-based bookies, who used them to promote illegal betting websites.

The accused operated multiple Telegram channels with thousands of subscribers. Sumanth ran Nani Cricket Betting Prediction with around 1.49 lakh subscribers, while Ganesh managed Vinay Reddy Cricket Prediction Channel with nearly 60,000 followers.

Investigators said Sumanth, a B.Tech. graduate from Delhi with an M.Sc. degree from the United Kingdom, was earning over ₹20 lakh per month by promoting Dubai-based betting websites. The accused allegedly travelled frequently to Dubai to coordinate with bookies and received payments for advertising betting applications. The probe also revealed links to Santosh Reddy and his girlfriend, Keerthi, earlier arrested and identified as key accused in the syndicate.

Police said the accused purchased three high-end cars and several flats using the proceeds of the illegal activities.

A case has been registered under Sections 112(1), 319(2) and 318(4), read with 61(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Sections 66C and 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and Sections 3 and 4 of the Andhra Pradesh Gaming Act, 1974. The four were remanded to 14 days’ judicial custody.