BENGALURU: Nearly 66 bookies were arrested from the Bangalore Turf Club (BTC) early on Saturday morning, following complaints of irregularities, including illegal betting, tickets being sold at higher prices, tax evasion and cheating. The search operation by CCB sleuths attached to the Special Enquiry Squad started at bookie counters on Friday afternoon and concluded around 1 am on Saturday.
All the 66 bookies were produced before the jurisdictional High Grounds police station and later released on station bail. The police seized Rs 3.47 crore unaccounted cash and documents, which are being scrutinised. Notices have been issued to all 66 bookies, asking them to furnish documents about the seized cash.
“In all, 75 bookies were involved in illegal horse race betting. While 66 were arrested, nine are absconding. 55 mobile phones were recovered and will be sent to FSL for examination,” said an officer, who was part of the raid.
‘BTC has nothing to do with the raids’
The CCB sleuths had temporarily locked the cash counters. They found that the bookies were not providing tax invoices and were cheating the exchequer by avoiding tax. The officials suspect that the tax evasion was happening for quite some time.
This is the second time that the CCB is raiding the club. In December 2019, CCB sleuths had detained 40 bookies and seized Rs 96 lakh cash. Just a few days later, the Enforcement Wing of the Karnataka Goods and Service Tax department too had raided BTC and unearthed a huge tax evasion scam.
BTC Chairman and senior steward Arvind Raghavan clarified that BTC has nothing to do with the raids, which were conducted on 26 licensed bookies.