Bookies move out of city

Fearing police raids, bookies from city operate from Matheran, Sangli, Goa; R5,000 cr at stake during Indo-Pak match

Bookies move out of city

Fearing police raids, bookies from city operate from Matheran, Sangli, Goa; R5,000 cr at stake during Indo-Pak match

New strategies

"Raids by the Pune police prompted us to shift our base from the city. Most of us are now operating from Matheran given its proximity to Mumbai as well. Apart from Matheran, Goa, Sangli, Kolhapur are the other favourable locations to carry out our business. Most of us have also changed our regular mobile numbers to avoid being traced," said a bookie.

Most of the people putting in their money are IT professionals and businessmen, many of them from the Marwadi community. India is the hot favourite to win the semifinal with its rate being 70 paise against Re 1 for Pakistan. The city alone will have Rs 5,000 crore at stake, while the entire country will put Rs 25,000 crores on betting during the Indo-Pak match on Wednesday," said another bookie.

Raids prove deterrent
Earlier, Police Inspector Sunil Tambe from the Pune Anti-Terrorism Cell, busted three betting rackets operating from Pimpri, Kondhwa and Bhavani Peth during the India-England and India-Australia match of the World Cup.
Tambe said the raids have acted as a deterrent to bookies. "Betting has become a profession for many punters, who don't take even a single day off from the 365 days a year," said Tambe.

"Although we have arrested 11 bookies till now, many others are still free. They have mostly fled out of the city and may be devising new ways to evade the cops. But we are alert and using intelligence and technical surveillance to nab them."

Earlier raids
Pimpri raid: Paras Jain (64) from Guruwar Peth, Mukesh Rameshwar Agarwal (35) of Dapodi, Sanjay Ishwarlal Mittal (39) from Chinchwad, Ram Govardhanmal Bajaj (37) and Gopa Vasudev Israni (42), both residing at Pimpri were arrested on March 13.
Kondhwa raid: Sunil Rajkumar Makhija (32) from Kondhwa and Subhash Deepchand Tekwani (47) from Bhavani Peth were arrested from Kondhwa on March 13
Bhavani Peth raid: Dinesh Deepchand Tekwani (36) and Prashant Dilip Hasija (29) were arrested on Thursday evening after a raid on the Bhavani housing society, while another suspect Milind Bapu Gavde (40) was arrested from Mangalwar Peth.

Coding and decoding
Bookies use code language to place bets. Their clientele includes IT professionals and businessmen who usually place Rs 500 to Rs 5 crores on bets. While bigger transactions take place through hawala, smaller ones are done by using bank accounts. Forensic tests are conducted on computers, laptops, mobiles recovered during the raid to decode the amount of betting that takes place.

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