Woman member of IPL betting racket held in Gujarat by MP cops

A 24-year-old woman, who is allegedly a member of an international betting syndicate, has been arrested from Ahmedabad airport in Gujarat by the cyber wing of Madhya Pradesh police, an official said today.

The arrest was made early yesterday.

According to police, the gang stole official signals of cricket matches played during the recently-held 11th edition of IPL by using a state-of-the-art technology and the stolen feed was streamed live on their website.

"The woman, Poonam Choudhary, was arrested at Ahmedabad airport after she landed there from Dubai around 4 am yesterday. She was then brought to Indore on a transit remand," state Cyber Crime Squad Indore unit's Superintendent of Police (SP) Jitendra Singh said.

The Cyber Crime squad had issued a lookout notice against Choudhary. Accordingly, the immigration officials stopped her at the Ahmedabad airport and informed Indore police, he said.

"In April, a private domain provider company was paid an amount of Rs 7,612 online from Poonam's bank account. This payment was done to protect the domain name of the website 'cbtfmagicbox.in' for the next 36 months.

"This is the website which live streamed the IPL match conducted on May 27. Through this, certain people were given cricket betting tips," Singh said.

According to the official, the woman's husband Haresh Choudhary is also a part of this gang and still absconding.

The alleged kingpin of the racket, Amit Majithia, is a native of Gujarat. Majithia is suspected to be in Dubai. This couple was also in contact with Majithia, Singh added.

One Hitesh Khushlani, a builder from Mumbai, is also a part of the gang and is suspected to be out of country, he said.

"The gang ran the website 'cbtfmagicbox.in'. CBTF stood for 'Cricket betting tips for free'. The gang stole official signals of IPL matches by using a state-of-the-art technology and then live streamed the raw feed (feed without advertisements) of IPL matches on its website eight seconds prior to the actual telecast," the SP said.

Police suspect that by taking advantage of this eight second gap, they earned huge money by luring people to place bets.

Based on a complaint lodged by Star India, the official broadcaster of IPL, police had arrested Ankit Jain alias Munnu Jockey, an alleged agent of the gang, from Vidisha town of the district.

Further investigation into the case is on.