Chinese national held for Rs 1,100cr online gambling racket

HYDERABAD: A Chinese national and three of his Indian associates have been arrested in a crackdown on an illegal online gambling racket being run by a China-based company, the police said on Thursday. The Chinese national and his associates were arrested by the Hyderabad police from Delhi on Wednesday and brought to Hyderabad on Thursday.

The development comes a day after Chinese individuals and companies were raided by income tax sleuths in Delhi, Gurugram and Noida on suspicion of laundering money. The online gambling was allegedly organised by different companies under the umbrella of China-based “Beijing T Power Company”, the police claimed, adding that transactions worth Rs 1,100 crore had been unearthed. Most of the transactions were carried out during the lockdown period.

Hyderabad police arrested Yah Hao, the online firm’s head of operations for Southeast Asia, and three Indian directors of the firm — Dheeraj Sarkar, Ankit Kapoor and Neeraj Tuli — after two men from Hyderabad lost Rs 1.64 lakh and Rs 97,000 while gambling online.