Hyderabad: Four individuals were apprehended by Special Operations Team (SOT), Malkajgiri, along with Jawahar Nagar police, for allegedly being involved in an illegal horse betting racket.
The accused have been identified as Thokala Nagesh, 45, Borra Venkaiah Chowdhury, 45, Challa Ramesh Babu, 48 and D Sunil, 55.
Two more accused in the case, M Rajesh Kumar and Venkat Chowdary, are absconding. These two, along with Nagesh, acted as bookies while the remaining three were betters/punters.
Nagesh hails from Old Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. He shifted to Chennai for job where he got addicted to horse betting.
In 2020, he relocated to Hyderabad due to financial and health problems. He got acquainted with Rajesh and Venkat, who also aided him in the illegal activity.
Eventually, Nagesh separated from them and started organising the betting himself. He created a WhatsApp group called ‘Shinewell Enterprises’ and added 105 members from all over the country, including 20 members from the twin cities.
Nagesh lured the victims to invest by promising high returns. As such, transactions of Rs 8,34,50,749 were found in his bank accounts in regard to horse betting.
A case has been booked against the accused under section 318(4) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and section 344 of the Telangana Gaming Act. Police were able to seize Rs 2 lakh cash from their possession, and also froze bank accounts related to the racket containing Rs 2,47,000.
