A group of eight men was arrested from an apartment in Nagerbazar in northeast Kolkata on Tuesday afternoon for allegedly running a betting racket from the apartment, police said.
The men were placing bets through online gaming apps, police said.
During the investigation, the police came to know that the men were from Chhattisgarh and had come to Kolkata two months ago.
They rented the apartment at Madhugarh and had allegedly set up a line of betting and gambling rackets, placing bets on different games like cricket and kabaddi and especially on the ongoing football World Cup matches.
“We raided the flat on the basis of specific information. Eight men from Chhattisgarh were arrested. Three laptops, eight mobile phones and bank account documents were seized. All the financial transactions were happening through e-wallets and online accounts,” said an officer of Barrackpore police Conmissionerate.
On analysing the laptops the police said that they found that betting had been done on several matches of the ongoing football World Cup, including the Brazil-South Korea knockout match.
The men have been booked under sections of cheating, gambling act and criminal conspiracy.
They were produced in court on Wednesday and remanded to police custody for four days.
Cops said they were trying to find out if there were more members in the group.
A few weeks ago Kolkata police had arrested a group of men from a nightclub in south Kolkata who were allegedly involved in betting on the football World Cup matches.
On November 27, two brothers from Salt Lake were arrested on charges of betting during the World Cup match between Argentina and Mexico.