2 bookies arrested from Grant Road hotel, multi-crore cricket betting racket busted
During the raid, officials recovered a register which showed that the bookies had accepted bets worth around Rs 14 crore in the last 11 days (Representational Image)
The Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) of the Mumbai Police busted a multi-crore betting racket and arrested two bookies who were accepting bets on the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup.
The bookies, arrested from a hotel in Grant Road on Sunday, had reportedly taken bets worth around Rs 14 crore.
After getting specific information about the betting racket, ANC officials raided room number 203 of Hotel Balwas in Khetwadi Grant Road and caught the accused red-handed.
“We arrested two bookies who were doing betting on their mobile phones for the cricket match between New Zealand vs West Indies,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) ANC, Shivdeep Lande.
The accused were identified as Vishwas Kishan Takalkar, 51-year-old from Musafir Khana in Mumbai, and Ajay Kantraj, a 24-year-old resident of Bengaluru.
During the raid, officials seized eight mobile phones worth Rs 1,93,200, one LCD worth Rs 25,000 and Rs 9,470 in cash. Additionally, a register detailing transactions amounting to around Rs 14 crore was also recovered.
The register showed that the bookies had accepted bets worth around Rs 1.6 crore during India vs Pakistan match, Rs 1.8 crore on Australia vs Pakistan, Rs 2.4 crore on West Indies vs Bangladesh and Rs 2.6 crore on New Zealand vs South Africa.
“We also found a register having the day to day entries since June 12 this year. The register shows betting accepted from different bookies for different matches and the amount of betting collected during that period was approximately Rs 14 crores,” Lande said.
The actual betting amount may be higher since the duo had been staying in the hotel since the last 20 days, whereas officials only found entries for the last 11 days.
The accused were booked by under Sections 4(a) and 5 of the Public Gambling Act for gaming with money illegally and Section 25(c) of the Telegraph Act by D.B Marg police station.
Meanwhile, police have launched a probe to identify the mastermind of the multi-crore betting racket.
