Vijayawada: Thai gambling bust has its echo in Andhra Pradesh

Vijayawada : The news of 80 Indian gamblers being arrested in Thailand for illegal gambling in the early hours of Monday quickly had its political ramifications in Andhra Pradesh with the opposition TDP targeting the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government and the alleged involvement of ‘Gudivada gang’ in it.

The Thailand police raided a luxury hotel (Asia Pattaya Hotel) in Pattaya in the small hours on Monday and arrested 93 gamblers. The Bangkok Post newspaper reported on Monday morning that the gamblers included the nationals of India (83), Thai (6) and Myanmar (4). All these had been handed over to the Pattaya police for legal proceedings, the paper reported.

All these have also been charged with having access to ‘baraku’, a vaping device, that was kept accessible to the gamblers in the hotel.

Lertsak Raktham, director of the Office of Consumer Protection Board (OCPB)’s legal execution division, when contacted said that Thailand has specified that any vaping devices, baraku (hookah) and electronic baraku cannot be imported, sold or used. This is yet another serious charge faced by the Indian gamblers arrested now.

The TDP spokesperson, Kommireddy Pattabhi Ram, lost no time in establishing a link between Chikoti Praveen Kumar, a professional casino organiser, and the Thai arrests alleging that the gambler had organised the same bringing disrepute to Andhra Pradesh.

It may be recalled that Chikoti is the guy who was earlier raided by the ED in Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts for organising not only gambling dens and casinos for the VIPs within India and outside, in Nepal, Indonesia and Thailand, etc., He was also accused of conducting one such in Gudivada with the blessings of the local MLA.

Pattabhi said such illegal activities were on the rise in Andhra Pradesh due to the connivance and blessings of the YSRCP leadership. He displayed a copy of a photo pointing to “Chikoti sitting in a chair” to target the state government and its leaders.

He said AP was once known for development and the visionary leadership of N Chandrababu Naidu in the past but now is known for such illegal activities more than any. He also gave details of the gambling-bust to highlight the menace linking it to “Gudivada gang”.

The Bangkok Post quoted police chief of Chon Buri, Maj Gen Kampol Leelaprapaporn, who stated that the raid occurred at a quarter past midnight at the luxury hotel, Asia Pattaya Hotel in Bang Lamung district.

The raid is said to have followed information from detectives that a number of Indian nationals had booked rooms at the hotel from April 27 to May 1 and rented a meeting room called Sampao for gambling.

When the police arrived, they found a large number of gamblers playing games of baccara and blackjack in the Sampao room.

On seeing the police they tried to run away but to no avail. Among the rounded up 93 six were Thais and four Myanmar nationals and the rest were game organisers and staff.

However, the report does not specify which states these Indians belonged to.

The police seized “four baccarat tables, three blackjack tables, 25 sets of cards, 209,215,000 worth chips, 1,60,000 Indian rupees, eight closed circuit television cameras, 92 mobile phones, three notebook computers, one iPad and three card dealer machines,” the report said.

A logbook in which gambling credits were recorded, showing about 1,000 million rupees worth of credits in circulation, was also seized.

There were also four spots for serving baraku.

The Bangkok Post reported Sitranan Kaewlor (32), an employee of the hotel, as telling the police she was in charge of the accommodation and gambling venue and that the Indian tourists were charged 50,000 baht (1 Thai baht= Rs 2.40) each. The room for gambling was rented for 1,20,000 baht. It was open from 1 pm. to 6 a.m. Hotel staff were not allowed into it nor the rooms of the guests.

Sitranan said a Thai man called Pakin was contracted to provide food and cleansing services.

All gambling equipment including the card dealers were brought from India.

All these were handed over to Pattaya police investigation for legal proceedings for illegal gambling and related charges.

The Thailand government strictly bans gambling, and hence you won’t find any illegally run casinos in Pattaya. The government has imposed strict laws as well as severe punishments for those practising such illegal activities.