International online sports betting racket busted

BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh police unearthed an international online sports betting racket in Ujjain and seized around Rs 15 crore cash, police said on Friday.

According to the police, the volume of notes was so huge (perhaps the biggest ever in an online betting racket in the state) that note-counting machines had to be pressed into service.

Ujjain district police are yet to quantify the equally large volume of international currency of seven nations (including dollars, euros, dirhams, Hungarian currency forint and Polish currency zloty).

Nine men hailing from Madhya Pradesh, adjoining Rajasthan and Punjab have so far been arrested. while Ujjain resident kingpin Piyush Chopra is on the run.

While most sports betting rackets busted in MP, so far, have pooled the sweepstakes primarily on cricket matches, the alleged racket busted at the swanky duplex in Ujjain’s Neelganga police station area was betting on all possible international sports — spanning from cricket to tennis and soccer to judo.

Acting on specific inputs about the betting racket operating from Duplex No 18 of the posh 19 Dreams residential township in Ujjain’s Neelganga area, police swooped in on the duplex, stumbling upon the unimaginable.