The Ahmedabad Zonal Office of the Enforcement Directorate, in collaboration with the Cyber Crime Police, conducted search operations at 20 premises located in Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Lucknow, and Coimbatore in connection with the case of Magicwin (an online betting platform) and others under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
The ED investigation comes after an FIR that was registered at the Cyber Crime Police Station in Ahmedabad alleging that the website https://magicwin.games/ had unauthorizedly hosted/streamed/broadcasted ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 cricket matches for which rights had been given to Star India Pvt. Ltd by the International Cricket Council (ICC).
It was gathered by the complainant that Magicwin had illegally broadcast ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 cricket matches of Canada vs. Ireland on 07.06.2024 and India vs. Pakistan on 09.06.2024 through the link https://ss47.live/, streaming the content from OTT Disney + Hotstar, causing a huge financial loss to the company authorized to broadcast the same.
Investigation also revealed that the MagicWin website is indulged in illegal activities like betting on live cricket matches and other games. The broadcast of live cricket matches of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 was without any subscription fee and was done in order to tempt the gullible people to bet on their website.
As a result of search operations, incriminating records/digital devices and cash of Rs. 30 lakh have been seized. Further, an amount to the tune of Rs. 2 crore (approx.) has also been frozen. In addition to it, certain crypto wallets have been identified containing balances to the tune of Rs. 12 crore, concerning which crypto exchanges have been instructed not to liquidate the crypto currencies from such wallets. The ED also stated that further investigation is ongoing.