Ex-brother-in-law of Arjun Rampal nabbed for cricket betting

Mumbai: The Mumbai crime branch has arrested Amit Gill, former brother-in-law of Bollywood actor Arjun Rampal for allegedly placing bets via bookies during the recent India-Sri Lanka cricket series. According to the police, the accused was using a mobile-app, whose server is based in Netherlands, to evade detection while placing bets.

The Unit IX of the crime branch arrested seven accused, including six bookies, in the case during a raid at D.N. Nagar, Andheri (west) in August. Gill allegedly was in touch with these bookies and placed bets on the matches, officials said. Gill, a resident of Santacruz, was arrested on Wednesday noon from Mumbai, officials said.

Gill’s lawyer Niranjan Mundergi said that the prosecution claims his client was involved in gambling. “But I told the court that it was a bailable offence. Hence, my client should not be sent to police custody. However, the court refused bail because there was an alleged call between the bookies and my client. It needed to be investigated,” Mr Mundergi said.

According to the police, the accused were using a specially designed software called Bingo, whose server is based in the Netherlands, to evade detection while placing bets.

“We are yet to ascertain how much money he passed on to the bookies for betting. We are questioning him on that and other angles,” said Nisar Tamboli, deputy commissioner of police (crime branch).

Police said the gang did not want to maintain a written record of the betting, hence the software was used and records were maintained in the software. The police is now in the process of completing the formalities to procure details and data of the servers.

The other arrested accused in the case were identified as Deepak Kapoor, Tarun Thakur, Sunny Thakur, Nitesh Khetlaji, Nikhil Ganatra and Aashish Sharma. They were apprehended during a raid that was conducted based on a tip off, police said.

“Gill was in contact with Kapoor,” police officials said. The racket came to light in August 2017 after the unit IX learnt of alleged betting taking place at Andheri. A flat on the 15th floor of a building was raided. The police arrested Kapoor, Thakurs and seized a laptop, cash and 13 mobile phones. The others were arrested subsequently and Gill’s name cropped up during the course of investigation.