Bookies caught taking bets in moving car

With police hot-on-heels of bookies placing bets in city, it has pushed the latter to formulate new gambling methods to escape long arms of law. However, Vastrapur cops outsmarted bookies on Wednesday and nabbed a couple of them taking bets in a moving car.

Vastrapur police, two back ago, learnt that two bookies were taking bets in a Maruti Swift car. They were always on the go to inhibit any suspicions.

Working on the tip-off, cops were on the watch at specific locations in Vastrapur area for last two days. Finally, at 2.30pm Wednesday, police stopped a Maruti Swift car near NFD circle and arrested Chandlodia-resident Hardik Patel, 22, and Rambabu Gupta, 22, red-handed from the car. Cops also recovered six cellphones, three SIM cards and a diary with client names and betting amounts logged in it. At the time of arrest, the duo was accepting bets on a T-20 match between New Zealand and South Africa. Frequent raids by authorities on hotels and residences to curb betting in city forced Patel and Gupta to place bets from a moving car.

Primary investigation revealed that Patel and Gupta had purchased one SIM card from a Visnagar resident for Rs1,500. They were accepting bets from 10 parties using this number.