Father, son held by Mumbai Police in Haryana for operating illegal online lottery

The police have managed to get two of the websites, hosted on US servers, through which the lottery operated. Express photo by Nirmal Harindran

THE Mumbai Police on Tuesday arrested from Haryana the owners of an illegal online lottery, who had been on the run for three months. The police had earlier made nine arrests in the case and had been on the lookout for father-son duo, Ramesh Chaurasia (60) and Aanchal Chaurasia (35), since February, when an FIR had been registered.

The accused allegedly ran the online lottery, called “Game King India”, without being registered with the state government, thereby incurring losses to the state exchequer. The police have managed to get two of the websites, hosted on US servers, through which the lottery operated. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber) Akbar Pathan said: “We have arrested the two accused from Gurugram in Haryana. The duo were produced in the court on Tuesday and remanded in police custody till Thursday.”

An officer said: “The duo kept changing locations and hence it was difficult to track them down.” The police said Aanchal claimed to have completed a course in Information Technology from Canada. The police found the accused have four-five high-end cars and houses in Mumbai and Delhi. An officer linked to the case said once the accused came to know the police were looking for them, they started operating the two websites, http://www.gamekingindia.com and http://www.planetgonline.com, from servers in the US that made it difficult to block them. The father-son duo had area managers who would give access to these games to customers at gaming centres. “We suspected that the system was designed in such a way that most people eventually lost money in the lottery. In lotteries registered with the government, people have to pay a certain amount to the state, which the accused in this case, did not register it,” the officer said.

“They have gaming centres across the country and were arrested by Indore Police last year. In Mumbai, too, they have 19 offences registered against them,” the officer added. The accused have been arrested on charges of cheating and under sections of the Lottery Regulation Act.