A total of 33 bookmaker agents in the city of Pune, India, have been arrested by authorities for allegedly betting on the second ODI between England and India.

All were arrested from three different high rise buildings surrounding the MCA cricket stadium, which hosted the match, and were found to be working as agents for bookmakers around the country.

The agents were observing the matches from the three locations using binoculars and high-resolution cameras, and communicated with bookmakers using laptops, tablets and mobile phones.

Commissioner of Pimpri Chinchwad Police, Krishna Prakash, stated that the agents had passed information about the results of the match to counterparts at a control centre.

Speaking to India Today, Commissioner Prakash said: “We have arrested four from Madhya Pradesh, 13 from Haryana, 11 from Maharashtra, two from Rajasthan, one from Goa, and one from Uttar Pradesh. 

“We have seized 74 mobile phones, three laptops, one Tablet, eight cameras, four binoculars  and one speaker, and these are very high resolution.

“The total cash amount we have actually seized is around 1 lakh 50,000, in which some foreign currency is also involved.”

He concluded: “We are going to take stringent action, and we are sending this message from this Commssionary and from the Police, that we are continuously saying that there is zero-tolerance in this area for any illegal activities. So don’t dare to come here, no nonsense will be tolerated.”

Betting integrity has consistently made the headlines in recent months, as FIFA announced the launch of its Global Integrity Programme to combat match fixing in football.

Source: India Today YouTube Channel