Gujarat police have very proactively hunted down and busted a gang that was conducting a fake T20 cricket tournament in Gujarat to take bets from Russian bookies by live-streaming the matches and arrested four of its members, an official said. Key accused Shoeb Davda created an impression of an Indian Premier League (IPL)-like a major tournament, on a rented agricultural field and hired around 20 farm laborers and unemployed local youth to play the game wearing T-shirts of non-existent teams, Mehsana Special Operations Group (SOG) police inspector Bhavesh Rathod said.
Along with Devda, the other three accused are Kolu Mohammad, Sadiq Davda, and Mohammad Sakib. Except for Sakib, all others are residents of Molipur village in Vadnagar Taluka, the police said. The police further seized cricket kits, flood lights, power generator and video cameras used for live streaming the matches, LED TVs, a laptop and some radio walkie-talkie sets all collectively worth Rs 3.21 lakh.
While investigating the matter, the police further found out about a cricket betting racket involving Russian punters, a Mehsana SOG team raided a recently prepared cricket ground on the outskirts of Molipur village on July 7. The initial investigation carried out by the police revealed that it was Shoeb Davda who came up with the idea of organizing the IPL-like tournament here and taking bets from Russia-based bookies by telecasting the matches live on their YouTube channel, the official said.
The fake teams in the tournament were given names like Chennai Fighters, Gandhinagar Challengers, and Palanpur Sports Kings. To play T20 cricket matches, Shoeb had hired around 20 farm laborers and local youth who would get Rs 400 per match, he said.
(Inputs from PTI)
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