Wardha: The Local Crime Branch has busted a racket that allegedly used bank accounts opened in the names of citizens for online cricket betting and gambling. Six accused have been arrested so far. Police said the accused misled citizens into opening bank accounts in their names and retained the ATM cards, passbooks and cheque books to use the accounts for illegal online betting transactions.The case came to light after complainant Pratik Jitendra Lokhande of Borgaon lodged a complaint at Wardha City Police Station. According to the complaint, accused Tanmay Bhagat and Sunny Holani told him they needed a bank account for finance-related work and got accounts opened in the names of the complainant and his friend at IDBI Bank. They then kept the ATM card, passbook and cheque book with themselves.After the complainant withdrew Rs 40,000 from the account, the accused allegedly threatened him. He later approached the bank, where he found that transactions worth approximately Rs 22 lakh had taken place through his account within a month.During the investigation, police found that the accused lured needy citizens and students by offering them Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 to open bank accounts in their names. The accounts and related banking documents were then allegedly sold to other members of the racket and used for financial transactions linked to online cricket betting, gambling, Mahadev App, Win Adda, FairPlay, Lotus365 and Reddy Anna.The arrested accused have been identified as Tanmay Kishore Bhagat, Sunny Manoj Holani, Dipesh Rajkumar Sevlani, Ankur Subhash Jain, Pankaj alias Panku Rajesh Lalwani and Dipesh Sawaldas Panjwani.Considering the wider ramifications of the case, superintendent of police Saurabh Kumar Agrawal transferred the investigation to the Local Crime Branch.Police said the racket involved several more associates, including some based outside Maharashtra. Efforts are underway to trace the remaining accused, and further investigation is in progress.
