Navi Mumbai: The Navi Mumbai Crime Branch has busted a lottery scam running in the name of Sai Lucky Coupon with the arrest of the main accused, Usman Gani Hussain Tindikkal (33). On December 26, the police raided a lottery centre in Koparkhairne and arrested Anil Sakharam Pawar (45).
Mr. Tindikkal, a resident of Goregaon, had started the illegal lottery business two years ago after the GST on the lottery increased to 28%. “Lottery retailers were left with 2% profit after paying the GST. Mr. Tindikkal asked for a 6% commission while the retailers earned a 8% profit against the 2% in the legal lottery business,” an officer from the Crime Branch said.
Tushar Doshi, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch, said, “Mr. Tindikkal handled the Navi Mumbai franchise of the Game of Dot (G.O.D) run by Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra with an intention to use the contacts of G.O.D to spread his chain. He attended their seminars to look for vulnerable people who could take up distribution in their areas.”
Mr. Tindikkal created Sai Lucky Coupon software from Myware software company in Seawood. It operated like an authorised lottery business. “The people who ran Sai Lucky Coupon used to put up boards with names of authorised lottery services. The main server was installed in the mobile of Mr. Tindikkal. After we seized that, we got links to various retailers across the State, who were using his software and running illegal businesses. All the retailers are our witnesses in the case,” a Crime Branch officer said.
The officer said, “He had met a person named Shetty at a seminar of G.O.D in Mumbai whom he told about the business. Mr. Shetty owned the franchise of G.O.D. in Nashik. Mr. Tindikkal used to provide the interested distributors, a computer and the link to activate the lottery. The distributor then would forward it to retailers.”
The police raided 37 lottery centres in Nashik, Kolhapur, Ratnagiri, Karad, Satara, Aurangabad, Parbhani, Latur, Sindhudurg, Solapur and Sangli, and seized hard disks and computers. The other accused arrested have been identified as Abdulkudus Mihammes Yakub Shaikh (43) a Nerul resident, Sandeep Vaman Khute (36) and Ravindra Narayan Khuge (29) from Nashik, Sameer Narasu Deshpande (38) from Kolhapur, Sanjay Motilal Alandkar (32) from Latur, and Sachin Krishna Achrekar (43) from Ratnagiri. “The monetary transaction happened daily. Sometimes, it used to be online, sometimes retailers deposited the money in his account. While the legal centres gave a prize money of ₹140 for a ₹20 ticket, Sai Lucky Coupon offered ₹180. G.O.D is no where related to the scam and the accused had only used its name and seminars to spread his business,” Jagdish Kulkarni, senior police inspector, Central Unit, Crime Branch, said.
The validity of the software was for 2.5 years and it was to get expired in six months. Mr. Tindikkal was planning to develop another similar software through another company, the police said. The accused, who was a chef in a five-star hotel, was earning close to ₹2 lakh monthly through commission.