Chinese gaming firm in `1.1K cr betting ring
An online gaming and betting racket that was run by a company based out of China involving at least `1,100 crore, with prospects of more money being involved, was cracked by the Hyderabad police. The gaming and betting racket is suspected to have led to suicides.
According to police commissioner Anjani Kumar, a series of shell companies, all controlled through a firm called as Beijing T Power Company based out of China, were identified as having been used by the racketeers to siphon money out of India. The police has so far managed to freeze `30 crore, Anjani Kumar said.
He announced that four persons, Chinese national Yah Hao, the authorised signatory and head of operations for South East Asia for the Chinese company, Dheeraj Sarkar of Gurugram in Haryana, Ankit Kapoor and Neeraj Tuli of Delhi have been arrested for their involvement in the racket. The three Indians were directors in the company, Anjani Kumar said.
Investigations began after a case was registered following complaints from individuals that they were cheated in online gaming on the website and lost `97,000 and `1,64,000 respectively. The cases were registered under Telangana Gaming Act, Section 420 and 120 (B) IPC.
Kumar told reporters that during investigations it was found that online gaming was organised by initiating prospective gamers through Telegram groups. Entry was by reference and members who introduced a certain number of new members were paid a commission.
Once someone took the bait, the players would be directed to websites on which they could place wagers on predicting which colour would appear in a block on the screen.
He said the investigation revealed that the bank accounts and payment gateways were linked to companies called Linkyun, Dokypay and SpotPay and others. The group running the racket was constantly setting up new companies and move operations from one company to another. The entire technical operation was run by China based directors/partners of these companies.
The payments, he said, were being routed through India-based payment service providers/gateways and in this case, the payments were routed through PayTM and Cash Free services.
Some suicides that were reported in recent times in the state and other parts of the country, and were linked to online will be investigated as part of this case, he said.
In addition, the investigations also indicated that these groups were possibly involved in other cybercrimes such as phishing, running banned apps and dating apps.