Hyderabad: The Hyderabad cybercrime police said that the main accused in the piracy case, Immadi Ravi, confessed to hosting the iBOMMA website through another company, under the domain name Njal.
At a press briefing on Tuesday, Hyderabad cybercrime additional commissioner of police Srinivas said that Ravi allegedly uploaded pirated films using a content management system and wrote scripts that pushed users toward gaming and betting websites such as 1win and 1xbet.
“iBOMMA is the centre of a major piracy racket operating across the Telugu states. Ravi earned up to Rs 20 crore through the operation,” the officer said.
The 39-year-old from Visakhapatnam created the iBomma piracy website in 2019, using his background in web hosting and development. During the COVID-19 lockdown, the platform exploded in popularity by offering newly released films in HD for free, drawing nearly 5 million users per month.
He is the mastermind behind the iBomma/Bappam piracy ecosystem, having a database of 50 lakh subscribers. His platforms diverted lakhs of users to illegal betting sites, which caused financial fraud and data theft.
Ravi was arrested on November 18. Police had seized hard drives containing 21,000 pirated films in multiple languages, Rs 3 crore in cash and found more than 110 domains linked to his operation.
He was sent to five days of police custody, which concluded on Monday.
