2 held for running betting racket in Shahdara

Two men have been arrested in Shahdara area in East Delhi for allegedly accepting bets on cricket matches and 167 mobile phones and other equipment used by the racket have been seized, police said on Wednesday.

Avnit Thapar and Manoj Kumar Bajaj, both resident of Jagatpuri, were arrested during a raid in Jitar Nagar area of Jagatpuri, they said.

Other than the mobile phones, police seized integrated circuits and 67 SIM cards from them. The accused were not using smartphones to avoid digital footprints, they said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Amit Sharma said they received a tip that the accused were living in the area affluently without any known source of income.

During the raid, Thapar was found operating a setup connected with cell phones kept in four suitcases to accept bets on cricket matches, police said.

Each feature phone had a unique four-digit operational code, they said.

Thapar's associate Bajaj told police that all the phones were connected with each other to receive transmission simultaneously from a main line (handled by a person at an undisclosed location who decided the information to be transmitted), the DCP said.

Bajaj disclosed that he received Rs 3,000 for each mobile phone active in the set-up. All the phones were used for automatic transmission of data through the setup to clients in NCR and beyond, the officer added.

The phones had incoming facility only and all financial transactions were made online, police said.