Hyderabad: Two persons including a techie were arrested by the city police for allegedly selling IPL tickets in black during SRH and RCB match.
The arrested persons have been identified as Chittoor Ramana, 27, a native of Bengaluru and Nyalakanti Samuel Susheel, 29, of Hyderabad. As many 100 IPL tickets, two mobile phones, all worth over Rs.5.07 lakh were seized from their possession.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, Task Force, S. Rashmi Perumal said Ramana was a software employee while Susheel was into digital marketing. Since both of them were cricket enthusiasts, they initially connected through a WhatsApp group.
Their conversations used to mainly revolve around cricket matches, leading to a close bond between them. Previously, at the time of One Day International world cup cricket matches, Ramana was caught by Chennai Police for allegedly selling cricket match tickets in black.
Due to the huge demand of IPL tickets, Ramana and Susheel hatched a plan to procure tickets in an illegal manner and sell them in the black market for high profits. There are several cricket-related Whatsapp groups in which about 1,000 members in each group are present from all over India, where members discuss matches and the availability of tickets, which they have booked online.
Ramana devised a plan to procure tickets through the common groups and pass them on to Susheel, via different mail IDs. Susheel would then redeem the QR codes at redemption centers in Hyderabad. Subsequently, they would sell the IPL tickets in black to their regular customers and also advertise them on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
As per norms of IPL authorities, every individual can obtain only four tickets, but these accused obtained many IPL tickets in an illegal way by using other people's IDs, names and email addresses, deceiving and causing loss to IPL ticket selling authority and inconvenience to genuine cricket viewers who are unable to secure tickets through online.
Because of these acts, there is artificial scarcity of tickets and genuine viewers are unable to get IPL tickets online. It has come to the notice of police that several youths are indulging in black marketing of IPL tickets by falling prey to the attraction of easy money. These actions are illegal as per law and will attract penalties and punishment. The public are requested not to purchase such tickets which are being sold illegally to discourage such activities, the police said.
