Cops’ burglar googly nets 10 cricket bookies

Rajkot: Ever since the IPL 2019 season began, a sprawling bungalow in Adipur town of Kutch has been the hub of cricket betting for Gujarat 10 big bookies.
Huge cash was stashed here and there was no fear of police as the bungalow was at in isolated spot.

On Tuesday night, when 10 bookies were busy taking bets, a stone suddenly came hurling on one of the windows. Soon, another window glass was shattered with a stick. The bookies thought burglars had attacked and some of them even saw a few men moving around wearing Kutchi lungi. They quickly decided to take on the burglars and opened the door. But to their utter shock, the 10 bookies found that cops had disguised as burglars to nab them.

After getting specific information about the betting racket flourishing in Adipur, police narrowed down on this 700 sqm bungalow. “But instead of directly storming into the bungalow, we hit up on a plan to fox the bookies by disguising as burglars so that they don’t get any whiff. Also, we did not want them to delete crucial information from their laptops or computers which could be a clinching evidence against them,” said DB Vaghela, inspector general of police (IGP), border range.

“Since it was dark outside, the bookies couldn’t make out they were policemen and thought they were burglars,” said Vaghela, adding these 10 were the biggest bookies of Gujarat who used to take bets from other small-time bookies across the state.

The Gandhidham police, which conducted the raid with rapid response cell and cyber cell sleuths, also seized material worth Rs 27.75 lakh that included a luxurious car and several mobile phones. The bookies had kept their place so secretive that they had not even disclosed it to their family members.

“Had we knocked the door from outside, they would have understood that its a police raid. They would have formatted the computer and mobile handsets before opening the door. So, one team disguised as burglars and another waited in civil dress outside the door,” Vaghela said.

J P Jadeja, in-charge police inspector of cyber cell said, “The bookies were using a hardware called communicator. Around 18 phones can be connected to one machine. There were four such communicators and nearly 50-60 phones connected to them to take bets from all over the state. They were deciding the price of the bets and communicating to those 50-60 people in the state who were also bookies.”

The accused arrested are identified as Abdul Chaniya, Bhavesh Pandya, Mahmood Hanif alias Babo Chaniya, Ismail Chaniya, Sokat Chaniya, Rahim Chaniya, Yunus Sindhi, Aasif Agham, Farooq Poptani and Mausami Majothi. The bungalow was rented out a person in Morbi who is yet to be arrested.