A village in the Mehsana district of Gujarat pulled off a sham IPL, three weeks after the official version of the tournament ended earlier this year, almost conning Russian gamblers into betting on the thrills of the T20 cricket, a report published in Times Of India revealed.
The elaborate fraud was complete with farm labourers pretending as cricketers, a farm in Molipur village used as a cricket ground, a Harsha Bhogle mimic for commentary and a Telegram channel to take the bettings from a remote audience of Russian punters.
The fraudulent tournament had reached its “knockout quarterfinal” stage before the organisers of the “Indian Premier League Tournament” were arrested by the police.
According to the report, the Gujarat villagers accepted bets from Russians based out of Tver, Voronezh and Moscow. High-resolution cameras were used to telecast the matches, which were broadcasted live on a YouTube channel named “IPL” for the consumption of the Russian punters.
The boldness of the charade could be determined by the fact that the tournament started three weeks after the original IPL concluded. A team of 21 farm labourers and unemployed youth of the village took turns wearing jerseys of Gujarat Titans, Chennai Super Kings, and Mumbai Indians to give an impression to their Russian audiences that the original IPL was underway.
The villagers also got umpires, gave them walkie-talkies and used 5 High-definition cameras for the broadcast in order to grant legitimacy to their sham. The noise of the crowd that is typically heard during a cricket match was downloaded from the internet and played during the broadcast to lend credence to their tournament.
Services of a Meerut-based Harsha Bhogle ‘mimic’ were also used to add to the authenticity of the tournament and induce punters into betting their roubles on the Telegram channel. Amused by the story, Cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle took to Twitter to share the newspaper article about the incident.
Can't stop laughing. Must hear this "commentator" pic.twitter.com/H4EcTBkJVa
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) July 11, 2022
The ‘tournament’ came to an abrupt halt after the Mehsana police got wind of the illegal activities carried out under the pretext of cricket competition. The police arrested four men and are currently probing the hawala channel used by the accused to keep the con going.
The con was executed by one Shoeb Davda, who had returned to Molipur after working for eight months in a Russian pub known for taking bets. According to the police, Davda rented the farm of one Ghulam Masih and installed halogen lights there. He corralled a group of 21 farm labourers, promising them Rs 400 per match. Then, he got cameramen and team jerseys of the IPL teams.
In his interrogation with the police, Davda said the mastermind of the con was Asif Mohammed, whom he had met while working at the Russian pub. It was Asif, Davda said, who introduced Russian punters to the nuances of cricket.
After returning to Molipur, Davda collaborated with Sadiq Davda, Saqib, Saifi, and Mohammed Kolu to organise a fake IPL tournament.
The conmen were caught just after they had received the delivery of the first instalments of the bets amounting to Rs 3 lakhs. The police said the fake IPL tournament was fixed. Shoeb took bets on the Telegram channel after which he would instruct on-field umpires to signal boundaries or sixes, who would also instruct bowlers and batsmen about the same.
