Hatibari Police in Odisha's Sundargarh district busted an illegal IPL betting racket on Thursday, arresting one person while several others managed to escape.
Cash amounting to Rs 3,95,590, multiple mobile phones, SIM cards, memory cards, and a vehicle were seized during the operation, police said.
Investigations are underway to trace the remaining accused, and multiple illegal websites linked to the racket have been identified, according to Sundargarh Police.
The crackdown comes amid a nationwide surge in illegal IPL betting operations, with law enforcement agencies across multiple states intensifying action against such rackets during the ongoing cricket season.
In a separate case, Indore city police on Wednesday busted a gang allegedly running online bets on IPL matches, arresting eight people including an IT professional and a bank official, PTI reported.
The accused were arrested from a house in the Babji Nagar area. Four of the accused hailed from Odisha while the others were from Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh.
As many as 23 mobile phones, three laptops, an LED TV and four registers containing entries of betting transactions worth over Rs 2 crore were seized, as per police.
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Deputy Commissioner of Police Rajesh Kumar Tripathi said initial investigations had revealed a Dubai connection, with money collected through different bank accounts and customers provided IDs and passwords for placing bets online.
In another significant development, the Enforcement Directorate conducted overnight searches at multiple locations in Assam and Delhi as part of a money laundering investigation linked to an illegal IPL betting racket, PTI reported.
The searches, carried out under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, covered premises in Guwahati, Tinsukia and New Delhi. The ED described the operation as a "well-organised, hierarchical and technologically enabled" syndicate, with bets solicited and settled through encrypted messaging platforms including WhatsApp, Telegram and Instagram, and through offshore online betting websites.
The probe stems from FIRs registered by the Crime Branch in Guwahati against Deepesh Bajoria, Ronak Bajoria, Rajesh Jain and others.
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