Pune City police raids 8 online gambling dens, 42 arrested
The Social Security Cell of Pune City Police has raided eight online gambling dens being run under garb of lottery and video gaming centres in Bibwewadi area. Saturday’s raids also led to the arrest of 42 persons.
Multiple teams from the cell raided the dens and made seizures of over Rs 19 lakh that included cash, bikes and tools used for online gambling. Police have booked 94 persons, including owners of these lottery and video game centres, recordkeepers employed at the shops, and some people who had come to gamble.
Sleuths from the Social Security Cell of the Crime Branch had received information that eight shops in Bibwewadi, which were licensed for sale of state authorised lottery tickets and also as video gaming centres, were running online gambling rackets. While simultaneous raids were conducted on these shops, three similar shops were raided in the Kondhwa area on July 23.
Police probe suggests that the racketeers used various online gambling applications including that of Matka gambling. Those who came for placing bets on specific numbers wrote their number bets on a plastic sheet and then took a photo of it before erasing the number. The results were then taken out using a computer- or phone-based gambling application. Thus, there was hardly any evidence or paper trail.