In a bizarre incident, a gang in Gujarat almost pulled off an elaborate con by creating a fake Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament and duping Russian punters who bet money on such cricket matches.
The incident took place at a remote farm in Molipur village of the Mehsana district. The scam was busted by the cops just before the quarterfinal stage of their so-called “Indian Premier Cricket League” and four gang members were arrested.
According to the cops, the fake matches began three weeks after the actual IPL concluded in May. The matches used to be broadcast live on YouTube and bets were placed by the punters on their “official” Telegram channel.
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To create an impression of the IPL-like tournament, the grifters installed a cricket pitch, complete with “boundary lines and halogen lamps”. They even hired 20 farm labourers and unemployed local youth for Rs 400 per game, and made them wear jerseys of IPL teams to pull off a near-perfect con job.
“Besides this, the accused had set up high-resolution cameras on the ground and used computer-generated graphics to display scores on a live-streaming screen,” police inspector Bhavesh Rathod said as per AFP.
Players took turns wearing jerseys of the Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians and Gujarat Titans, the police informed. They also revealed that crowd noise sound effects were downloaded from the internet and walkie-talkies were also used during the fake matches by the umpires to make the tournament appear authentic.
According to PTI, the scam was organised by Shoeb Davda who used to work in Russia and recently returned to his native place Molipur. The other three accused have been identified as Kolu Mohammad, Sadiq Davda and Mohammad Sakib. All four have been arrested.
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Asif Mohammad has also been accused of plotting the scam. Mr Rathod informed, “While live-streaming the matches on their YouTube channel, Asif, sitting in Russia, took bets from bookies.” “He is still in Russia and is wanted in the case,” Mr Rathod added.
Further, the police inspector said that a quarter-final match was being played when the department got a tip-off and busted the racket. The first instalment of bets from Russia amounting to Rs 3 Lakh had already been received by the group running the fake betting racket, Mr Rathod added.
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