New Delhi:
A 15-member team of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) today conducted searches in Delhi and Gurgaon for betting syndicates suspected of having placed bets worth Rs 400 crore in the ongoing season of the Indian Premiere League (IPL).
The officials have detained a few suspected bookies and have seized 250 mobile phones during the raids in Shastri Nagar (north Delhi), Karol Bagh (central Delhi) and Palam Vihar in Gurgaon. Apart from Delhi-NCR, 8 other places in Mumbai, Bangalore and Jaipur have also been raided in connection to the case.
The accused have been charged by ED under Sections 418 (cheating), 419 (punishment for cheating), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 471 (using forged document as genuine) along with Section 120(b) (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code.
The raids were conducted by officials from the agency's Ahmedabad office - in association with the Delhi office - which has been probing an alleged pan India IPL betting racket. The office had busted a betting racket and arrested some bookies - along with 13 other people - from a farmhouse on the outskirts of Vadodara in Gujarat in March, sources said. The two bookies arrested during the raid, Kiran Bala and Tommy Patel, had revealed information about an alleged network of bookies in north India.