A Chinese national and three of his Indian associates have been arrested in a crackdown on an illegal online gambling racket being run by a China-based company in Hyderababd, the police said on Thursday.
The Chinese national and his associates were arrested by the Hyderabad police from Delhi on Wednesday and brought to Hyderabad on Thursday, according to reports.
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The development comes a day after Chinese individuals and companies were raided by income tax sleuths in Delhi, Gurugram and Noida on suspicion of laundering money.
The online gambling was allegedly organised by different companies under the umbrella of China-based “Beijing T Power Company”, the police claimed, adding that transactions worth Rs 1,100 crore had been unearthed.
Most of the transactions were carried out during the lockdown period.
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Hyderabad police arrested Yah Hao, the online firm’s head of operations for Southeast Asia, and three Indian directors of the firm — Dheeraj Sarkar, Ankit Kapoor and Neeraj Tuli — after two men from Hyderabad lost Rs 1.64 lakh and Rs 97,000 while gambling online.
The four have been booked under IPC Sections 420 (cheating) and 120-B(conspiracy) and under the Telangana Gaming Act. Gambling is banned in Telangana and some other states.
The two youth placed bets while playing online gambling games organised by the Chinese firms. The organisers have also been accused of cheating the complainants by manipulating results.
The firms carried out transactions through two bank accounts. Though most of the money has already been transferred to different accounts, including those abroad, police were able to freeze Rs 30 crore (a day’s earnings) parked in two accounts.
They claimed to have unearthed remittances overseas of Rs 110 crore so far.
Under Beijing T Power Company, several firms — Growing Infortech Pvt Ltd, Sily Consulting Services Pvt Ltd, Pan Yun Technology Services, Linkyun Technology Pvt Ltd, Dokypay Technology Pvt Ltd, SpotPay Technology India Pvt Ltd, Daisylink Financial Pvt Ltd, and Huahuo Financial Pvt Ltd — were organising betting through online games.
The four are to be produced in a local court on Friday.