Nine held from 5-star hotel as police busts IPL betting racket

Nine people have been arrested from a five-star hotel here for allegedly running a betting racket during IPL cricket tournament, police said.

During interrogation, it was found that the accused were involved in betting on cricket matches for the last 10 years, police said.

The Crime Branch was working on inputs about some men being involved in betting money on the IPL matches.

On a tip-off, one of its teams conducted a raid yesterday at the five-star hotel in north-west Delhi where the accused men had booked a room for carrying out the betting activities on the match.

When the raid was conducted, it was found that the IPL final between Rising Pune Supergiants and Mumbai Indians was on while customers were calling on cell phones for placing bets on the match, a senior police officer said.

10 mobile phones of bookies, three laptops, seven mobile phones used for receiving calls from clients, two mobile phones for making calls for getting bets and note sheets were seized from the spot, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Madhur Verma.

The nine accused-- Kunal Miglani (31), Jitender Kumar (33), Sumit Kalra alias Sunny (32),  Nitin Harjani (38), Nikhil Gidwani (23), Amit Kumar Dhingra(32), Sumit Sharma (32), Rajesh Jain (46) and Naveen Kumar(29), he added.

They were planning to take a week-long vacation post the IPL and then returning to Delhi for the Champions Trophy. The police is currently working on knowing who were the other bookies the accused were in touch with.

It is also suspected that they were involved in betting on other Indian sporting leagues like Hockey India League and Indian Super League, police said.

During interrogation, it was found that Miglani, Kalra and Jitender are the kingpins of the group.

The betting was done completely through phones and the money earned or lost was taken or delivered to the clients the next day, Verma said.

The betting racket was running on assurance, he said.

Police said that the phones had recording facility so that the accused could keep a track of the money they had to give or take from their clients.

The accused persons used to bet their money on cricket matches but they later formed their own betting network.