World Cup 2019: Cricket bookie held

MANGALURU: City police continued its crackdown against cricket betting by arresting one more bookie on Wednesday.
Based on a tip-off, personnel of Barke police station swooped down on a place where Sudesh, 26, a resident of Mission Compound, Bolooru, was accepting bets on the South Africa-New Zealand clash in the ongoing ICC World Cup, and seized cell phones and money that he had collected from punters, and registered a case against him.
City police chief Sandeep Patil said Sudesh was using the app ‘Cricket Exchange’ to conduct the illegal betting operation. The police team led by P A Suraj, PI, Barke police station seized two cell phones and cash, valued at Rs 1.15 lakh from the accused. Noting that Sudesh was acting as a conduit for a bigger betting racket, Patil told TOI that he was in liaison with another bookie in Bengaluru, on whose trail the police are, and efforts are on to nab the accused.
Incidentally, Patil, at the onset of the World Cup, had warned cricket lovers to follow the action on the field and not off it, reminding punters and bookies alike that cricket betting is illegal and police would act against it. Police action during the IPL, and ever since the World Cup got under way in England, has forced many of the regular bookies to change base and operate from neighbouring states to avoid getting caught in the police dragnet.