Four held for running illegal online lottery racket

Crime Branch sleuths busted an illegal online lottery and betting racket by arresting four persons from Malwani area in western suburbs, an official said today.

Police yesterday raided a lottery centre and seized six computers, eight mobile phone handsets, two EDC machines, a printer, a bar code scanner, a router, printing equipment and cash worth Rs 3.28 lakh, he said.

Following the raid, police arrested Alpesh Battiya (34), Zahiruddin Shaikh (34), Kadar Badshah Shaikh (42), and Narendra Kanani (52) from Malwani area, the official said.

One of the accused, Kadar Shaikh, a lottery distributor, is the kingpin of the racket, he said.

"Kadar had developed a website and an online lottery application named 'Bhagyashree' which is similar to Rajshree Lottery, the authorised online lottery centre. Kadar then allotted franchises to some online lottery centres in suburbs and neighbouring areas as well," said Chimaji Adhav, senior police inspector, Unit-11.

Every online lottery centre used to make around Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 a day by by operating the "Bhagyashree online lottery" and application, he said.

For smooth operation of lottery and declaring its results, Kadar obtained a google engine, which has a server in Canada, said DCP (crime) Nisar Tamboli.

He said KAdar used to pay monthly rent to the engine online.

As the main accused had knowledge of the entire operation of Rajshree Lottery, he used all the infrastructure to promote his own lottery business, he said.

The accused started the online lottery as their commission as lottery agents was slashed after introduction of GST which brought lottery business under its ambit.