“Never seen such a scam”
Indians rip off Russians with fake cricket league
Russian sports betting fans gambled on imaginary teams and games in India. Only an anonymous tip paralyzes the scammer network.
Published: 2:09 p.m
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Updated: 2:11 p.m
In India, police are reporting a curious betting scam in which unemployed petty criminals have managed to rip off Russian sports betting fans. Games of a fake Indian Premier League (IPL) are streamed on a YouTube channel and bets are placed on the “Chennai Fighters” or the “Gandhinagar Challengers” in a Telegram chat.
Too bad the real Indian Premier League has been over for weeks, the “Chennai Fighters” and the “Gandhinagar Challengers” invented teams and the cricket referee gives the players instructions via walkie talkie on how they should play. Eagle eyes would have become suspicious when watching the live stream. The camera is a single shot, the athletes are miles from professional sport, and most of the broadcasts have no sound. Suspicious considering the real IPL is one of the biggest cricket leagues in the world.
Anonymous tip exposes scammers
Nonetheless, the scam worked for Russian match bettors. The police caught the scammers thanks to an anonymous tip. Investigator Bhavesh Rathod told the BBC: “I’ve never seen a scam like this before. These guys just cleared a piece of land deep in a village and started playing a game and broadcast it on YouTube to make money from gambling.”
Four main suspects previously worked at a bar in Russia and alerted people there to cricket betting. The “cricket professionals” were actually farm workers and unemployed young people who were paid 400 rupees (approx. 5 francs) per game. The teams were simply mixed up in the next game and they played in another invented team. Close-ups were never seen in the videos anyway.
«Fraud much bigger»
After around 10 games, the fraud was discovered and the suspects were now being questioned. According to reports, the masterminds made around $4,000 from the bets, but the cleared field had already cost twice as much. According to investigator Rathod, this indicates that the “fraud is much bigger”. (jsl)
