Scam victim turns whistleblower: Hyderabad MBA graduate ends influencers' 'betting' innings; helps cops bust racket after losing Rs 50 lakh, friend to suicide
HYDERABAD: After losing over Rs 50 lakh and a close friend, an MBA graduate from Hyderabad has turned whistleblower helping cops' crackdown on online cricket betting. In June, the Cyberabad police filed two FIRs and arrested five online influencers for allegedly luring thousands of Telugu youth to sites promoting this illegal trade.
The FIRs were lodged based on a month-long investigation carried out by the 27-year-old who recently returned to the city from Italy. He has two master's degrees — in management and IT — and decided to take on the fraudsters after he himself fell prey to the menace. His friend, who lost Rs 60 lakh to betting, died by suicide.
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'I had not only invested my own money but even borrowed funds from friends to feed my addiction,' said the whistleblower sharing how it all started in Dec 2023 when he and a friend, while browsing Instagram reels in Italy, came across advertisements offering a 'guaranteed toss-fix' for cricket matches.
'I clicked the link and joined the Telegram channel 'The Mars Toss,' he said.
There he found one of the accused, Pottavathini Deepak, offering cricket match outcomes and encouraging members to place bets through offshore websites recommended by him.
'Unable to not cope with the losses, manipulation, and lies from influencers, my friend died by suicide at his residence in Bhopal in Dec 2024,' the whistleblower said.
Shaken, the Hyderabad youth started investigating the influencers' activities. He joined their Tele g ram channels and identified patterns. 'All of them are deceitful. They convince victims that they have access to cricket teams and can fix tosses and matches,' the whistleblower told TOI.
He added: 'Occasionally, some predictions come true leading them to create reels boasting their fabricated successes. They work for various betting sites, receiving fixed monthly payments up to Rs 10 lakh depending on their social media and Telegram channel followers.
They actively promote betting websites.'
Posing as a representative of betting sites, he contacted influencers and obtained their personal details. With this evidence, he approached Miyapur inspector K Kranthi Kumar in June who directed him to cybercrime police.
'All I want is to prevent more people from falling victim to deceit. They are knowingly cheating lakhs of Telugu youth. I am grateful to Cyberabad police for acting swiftly and arresting some of the fraudsters,' the young man told TOI.
'He played a proactive role in identifying the accused and bringing their details to our notice,' said a senior police official. A few initial bets were successful, so I continued and started investing more and more money. By May 2025, when I placed the last bets, I had lost over lakh
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