Hyderabad, March 21 : Hyderabad police have busted an international online gaming and satta betting racket with the arrest of five persons.

The sleuths of the Commissioner's Task Force, Central Zone Team along with Police Station Madhura Nagar staff busted the racket which was operating from a rented flat under the limits of Madhura Nagar Police Station.

The arrested men are Sonule Srikanth, Gurle Haris, Gurle Satish Kumar, Sonule Thirupathi, and Ade Vinod, all natives of Kagaz Nagar in Kumaram Bheem Asifabad district.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police Y.V.S. Sudheendra, the accused are friends and have been organising the betting through online mode. The accused were supervising the registration process of victims on their gaming sites. The gang members were also opening bank accounts, obtaining SIM cards in the names of poor and needy people offering them money.

The accused used to control the accounts used for transferring money from the victim's side. Thy initially lured the victims by offering them nominal profits. Subsequently, when the investment amounts increased, the victims started losing money as the gaming on the websites was manipulated by the accused.

Police seized three MAC books, one tab, two colour printers, Satta and Matka betting printing pamphlets, betting charts, 18 mobile phones, Rs 1.55 lakh cash, and Rs 2.13 lakh in bank accounts.

The accused studied till the intermediate level and are carpenters by profession. They had a habit of betting amount on Satta and Matka.

To gain easy money through online gaming and Satta/Matka betting, they took a residential flat on rent in Madhura Nagar in Hyderabad three months ago to organise the Satta/Matka. They created an online betting YouTube channel to trap punters who are in the habit of betting online.

The accused used to make fake videos posing as punters, claiming that they were winning huge amounts on low investment and appreciating the betting site. They were sharing the fake videos with victims to lure them to invest huge amounts in betting.

The accused were accepting online payments from punters. They were initially offering nominal profits to gain their confidence and later, the victims were losing huge amounts due to manipulation by the accused.

/IANS