KPL betting scam: Bowling coach held

Continuing its investigation into the Karnataka Premier League betting scam, the Central Crime Branch sleuths on Friday arrested a bowling coach and a batsman involved in another betting racket.

According to the CCB sleuths, this is the second racket they have exposed in September after they busted the first one with the arrest of Ali Asfak Thara, owner of the Belagavi Panthers.

Along with Thara, four others were also arrested, and the sleuths learnt that the betting link and network was so huge that there were bookies even in Dubai.

During the course of the investigation, the sleuths stumbled on information about a similar racket and picked up the bowling coach of Bengaluru Blasters, Vinuprasad, a senior police officer said.

Investigations revealed that Vinuprasad colluded with the bookies to fix matches between the Bengaluru and Belagavi teams in 2018.

It was also found that Vinuprasad — who took several lakhs of rupees from the bookies —  paid Rs 5 lakh to batsman Vishwanath to play a slow innings to ensure a drop in scoring to let the bookies earn more, the officer said.

The CCB officials arrested Vinuprasad and Vishwanath based on the information and recorded their statements. They searched their houses and recovered documents from Vinuprasad for further investigation. 

Efforts are on to secure arrests of the several bookies Vinuprasad was in touch with, the official said. Meanwhile, Thara, arrested in the betting scam earlier, is now out on bail, he added.