Lucknow, April 26 : A UP Special Task Force (STF) team, on Thursday night, arrested the India head of the Mahadeva gaming app and his associate from Vibhuti Khand in Gomti Nagar, Lucknow.

The arrested are identified as Abhay Singh and Sanjeev Singh, both from Deoria.

According to STF officials, the team seized 276 pre-activated SIM cards of different companies, four mobile phones, besides a luxury car, documents and jewellery.

The two confessed that they had duped many after getting 32 corporate SIMs ported in the name of different fake companies and had sent 4,000 SIM cards to their men in Dubai for operating the scam, the STF said.

Additional SP, STF, Vishal Vikram Singh said that the STF was informed by their network of informers that the platform offered card games like 'Teen Patti', poker, 'Dragon Tiger' and virtual cricket games, among others. The platform has also been accused of match-fixing, money laundering through cryptocurrency and rigging games to ensure profits for panel owners and heavy losses for players.

'Abhay said that his cousin Abhishek Singh, who lived in Dubai, asked him to purchase new SIM cards in the name of poor and illiterate persons, promising him a salary of Rs 25,000 per month and Rs 500 per SIM. He said he started purchasing the SIM cards and then got them ported to another company,' said the Additional Superintendent of Police.

In 2023, Abhay's salary was increased to Rs 75,000 per month and he was given the task of corporate SIM porting, with KYC done in the name and address of a fake company. Chetan also sent some prepaid SIMs to Abhay, who got Rs 2,000 as commission per SIM for activation and he worked under Sanjeev's supervision.

He disclosed that he procured SIM cards from Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Jaipur, Pune, Mumbai and Odisha.

He said WhatsApp and Telegram groups were used to trap people.

He confessed that after the ED's action against Mahadeva app, the gang was running Reddy Anna Book, Fairplay, Lotus 365 and other apps.

/IANS