In a major crackdown on illegal online betting and cyber fraud, Hyberabad cybercrime police, along with the Special Operations Team (SOT), arrested five persons on Monday evening for supplying bank accounts to betting syndicates operating across India.
The accused have been identified as D Naveen Kumar, V Sandeep Kumar, Ch Prudhvi Ramaraju, Ch Pavan Venkata Naga Bharadwaj, and M Ramanjaneyulu, all natives of Andhra Pradesh.
Based on a tip-off, police raided a flat at Lodha Meridian Apartments in KPHB Colony, where Naveen Kumar and Sandeep Kumar were apprehended. Investigators said the duo opened and supplied nearly 120 bank accounts along with SIM cards over the past six months to illegal online betting operators.
According to police, these accounts were sold to a Bengaluru-based handler, Arvesh Kumar, at Rs 10,000 per account. Daily wage workers were allegedly paid Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 to open accounts in their names, which were later misused for cyber fraud and betting transactions.
Further investigation led police to Raichur in Karnataka, where Prudhvi Ramaraju, Pavan Bharadwaj, and Ramanjaneyulu were arrested. The trio allegedly worked as telecallers for online betting portals, operating a call centre near the Telangana–Karnataka border to avoid detection.
Cyber Crime DCP B Sai Sri said the accused were working under Sathyanarayana Verma, who used Telegram and WhatsApp groups to lure victims to an illegal betting platform named Dodgebook777, hosted on the Supago website.
“Though online betting is banned in Telangana, the account suppliers had been coordinating with Verma for six months, while the call centre staff joined a month ago on a salary of Rs 18,000,” the DCP said.
Police seized two laptops, 30 mobile phones, 32 cheque books, 23 debit cards and 48 SIM cards. An amount of Rs 14 lakh in the accused’s bank accounts has been frozen. Authorities are also probing whether banks acted negligently or if the accounts were opened deliberately for fraudulent use.
A suo motu case has been registered under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Information Technology Act. All five accused were produced before a court and remanded to judicial custody on Tuesday.
