At 10.11 pm on Thursday, a Noida Police team, including five sub-inspectors and a head constable, was out on routine checking when an informer hurried towards them with a tip — an online betting operation during the T20 World Cup matches was allegedly being run from a flat at Civitech Stadia society in Sector 79.
The police team followed the informer to Tower F of the residential complex. When they reached the 10th floor, he quietly signalled towards Flat No. 1003. Joined by another head constable, the team knocked on the door — and caught the accused red-handed.
Inside the flat, police said they found what appeared to be a full-fledged ‘control room’: dozens of mobile phones, laptops and other equipment were laid out while a Zoom call was running in the background allegedly coordinating wagers on the semifinal match between India and England.
Five people allegedly involved in the illegal racket were arrested by the Crime Response Team in coordination with the Sector 113 police, based on local intelligence inputs and electronic surveillance, officers said.
According to police, the accused were running the network through online platforms and phone calls, targeting cricket matches and collecting money from bettors.
“The arrested individuals have been identified as Vinay Sehgal (35), a resident of Geeta Colony in Delhi; Navdeep Singh (30) from Abohar City in Punjab’s Fazilka district; Rajiv Sharma (48), also from Geeta Colony in Delhi; Salil Seth (25) from Imperial Colony on Loharka Road in Amritsar; and Dev Kumar (24), a resident of Jhalari village in Nepal’s Kanchanpur district,” officers said.
Additional DCP, Noida, Manisha Singh, said on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday, the Crime Response Team along with Noida Police arrested five men who were part of a network that carried out online betting during the India-England match. “Vinay Sehgal was the alleged mastermind of the online betting racket. The accused carried out betting in huge amounts. They had been living in the society for one and half months,” said the Additional DCP.
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The workings
During questioning, police said the accused admitted they were accepting bets on T20 World Cup matches, including the India-England semifinal on March 5.
According to officers, the accused claimed the rate for the match was fixed at Rs 50 paise for India and Rs 2 for England.
“If a customer bets Rs 100, he will eventually make a profit of Rs 200. If a customer loses the bet, he gets no money. The customer could bet at any point on any of the players, even on the fours and the sixes. Once they win, the money would be transferred into their account,” the accused revealed, said police.
“They allegedly coordinated betting activities through Zoom video and audio calls as well as regular phone calls, allowing participants to place bets remotely. They used multiple electronic devices to manage betting operations and track wagers placed by clients. The accused would collect money from bettors through intermediaries in the field and profit from the betting transactions,” said officials.
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During the raid, police recovered several electronic devices and other materials used in the operation. The seized items include three laptops, three tablets, three desktop monitors, 32 mobile phones, two IC recorders, four slip pads and two notebooks, three assembly line boxes, a CPU, a printer-cum-scanner, extension boards, mobile stands, chargers, data cables, headphones, a WiFi router, a WiFi dongle, three bags and Rs 8,000 in cash.
A case has been registered under BNS sections 61(2) and 318(4), Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, and Sections 3 and 4 of the Public Gambling Act, 1867 at Sector 113 police station in Noida.
Police officers said further investigation is underway to identify other members of the network and trace the financial trail of the illegal betting activities.
