Police in Himachal Pradesh’s Kangra district have detained six men and seized 41 mobile phones alongside seven laptops following an operation targeting a suspected illegal online gaming and financial syndicate. Acting on specific intelligence, law enforcement personnel searched a rented residential property in the Birta locality near Dharamshala on Thursday. Investigators suspect the group was running unauthorized gaming services, specifically Lotus265, 100Panel, and FairPlay, while enticing local citizens to place money into online wagers. The six occupants present at the location were taken into custody for questioning, with three hailing from Kangra district and three originating from Bihar.
Raid on Rented Birta House Yields Massive Electronics Cache
The raid was initiated after law enforcement received intelligence that a group of five or six individuals had established an administrative hub inside rented lodgings to operate gaming networks. According to Kangra Superintendent of Police Kulbhushan Verma, the raiding party discovered an unusually large cache of electronic hardware distributed across the premises. When questioned, the six occupants failed to offer a lawful or satisfactory explanation regarding why so many handheld communication devices and portable computers were operating simultaneously within a private home.
Officers formally confiscated all 41 smartphones and seven laptops in accordance with statutory procedures and in the presence of independent witnesses. The detained individuals have been identified as Lavlesh, 25, Sagar Chaudhary, 27, and Aryan from Nagrota Bagwan, representing the local Kangra contingent. The remaining three individuals were identified as Manoj Kumar Mehta, 28, Pankaj Pandit, 31, and Vivek Kumar, 27, all residents of Bihar. Police are questioning the six men to reconstruct the internal division of labor within the rented house and evaluate the operational hierarchy governing their activities.
Financial Transactions Under Scrutiny Over Digital Mule Accounts
Following the seizures, Kangra police registered a formal case under Sections 317(2), 317(5), and 318 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Technical teams have begun forensic extractions of the confiscated mobile phones and laptops to recover system logs, transaction trails, and platform access credentials. Investigators are focusing on digital payment infrastructure, suspecting that the syndicate assembled a network of unified payments interface identifiers and quick-response codes routed through bank accounts opened in multiple states across India.
A core component of the inquiry centers on determining whether these financial channels functioned as mule accounts, which third parties utilize to route, conceal, or layer questionable funds. Detectives are auditing digital payment records and transaction ledgers to establish who maintained actual control over the associated accounts, whether genuine account holders were aware of the transactions, and how much collective capital moved through the gaming portals before the raid took place.
Broad Cross-State Links Examined as Forensic Analysis Begins
The investigation is working to establish whether the Birta setup served as an isolated branch or functioned as an operational node linked to a broader cross-state network operating beyond Himachal Pradesh. Authorities emphasize that the extraction of hardware evidence represents the most critical path forward, as digital records can substantiate communication links between the suspects, identify off-site controllers, and trace outbound monetary flows.
Police stated that detailed financial auditing and technical examinations of the hardware are proceeding concurrently to clarify the full scope of user transactions. Official proceedings will depend on forensic and banking findings as the inquiry develops. Police have noted that initial detentions and hardware confiscations remain investigative steps, with individual criminal liabilities to be evaluated under applicable laws as formal court proceedings advance.
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