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Probe into ‘kidnapping’ blows lid off cricket betting racket with foreign links in Noida

A man in Rajasthan received a call demanding a ransom of Rs 7 lakh for the release of his son and nephew. It turns out they were members of a cricket betting racket with handlers in Dubai and Thailand.

Online Cricket betting rackets caught under scam foreign links in Noida (Representational image)

An international cricket betting syndicate operating out of Greater Noida was uncovered following an investigation into a ransom call related to the kidnapping of two youths, the Gautam Buddh Nagar police said Sunday. The Kasna police and a SWAT team, in a joint effort, arrested eight people allegedly involved in the illegal online betting operation using a mobile app managed from Dubai and Thailand.

The investigation began on June 12, when Subhash Chandra, a resident of Alwar, Rajasthan, claimed his son Bhim Singh, 22, and nephew Narayan, 25, had been kidnapped. He said he received a call demanding Rs 7 lakh for their release. The two had arrived in Noida for work from their village approximately 15 to 20 days prior. This was not their first time working in Noida, but their family had no information about the nature of their job, the police said.

When the police tracked Bhim’s phone location to Cherry County and later to White Orchid apartments in Gaur City, the truth began to unravel. Officers discovered a group of young men closely associated with Bhim living in rented flats. Upon raiding one of the apartments, the police apprehended four people and recovered laptops, dozens of mobile phones, SIM cards, fake Aadhaar cards, chequebooks, and registers — all pointing to a sophisticated operation through an app, Rudra Cric Live.

The arrested accused confessed to conducting ball-by-ball betting during live cricket matches — on everything from runs to wicket falls. The racket was allegedly being run internationally, with handlers based abroad supplying fake documents and SIM cards. The team reportedly handled daily transactions of Rs 30 lakh, which they transferred to accounts provided by their overseas handlers, according to the police.

The four arrested accused guided the police to Radha Sky Gardens, where Bhim and Narayan were present in the racket’s second racket.

“All eight of us do cricket batting work; all our work is done through laptops and mobiles. We are provided with SIM cards using fake names and addresses, fake accounts and related documents by our boss, who resides in Thailand and Dubai and oversees us from there. We transfer the daily sum of around Rs 30 lakh to the accounts given by him,” Bhim was quoted as saying by the police.

During questioning, he also admitted that the kidnapping story had been fabricated to scare and extort money from his own family, said the police.

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Addressing the press, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Greater Noida) Saad Miya Khan said, “Those two men for whom the kidnapping complaint was filed are also involved in this betting racket. They made a miscalculation, which led them to devise a plan with their managers. The plan involved staging their own kidnapping and demanding money from their family members. This way, they hoped to recover a loss of Rs 10 lakh.”

Giving information on the betting racket, he added, “They have almost 20 branches in Delhi-NCR, and they operate on cricket match days; there are three boys in every branch who initiate this betting, and there are some managers. All this is salary-based. This app is banned in India, but it is being promoted through some influencers and online pop-ups, to whom notice will be served.”

The police filed a case under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the Public Gambling Act, and the Information Technology (IT) Act at the Kasna police station.