In Telangana, the Hyderabad Cyber Crime Unit arrested the alleged mastermind behind the iBomma and Bappam piracy racket. The ecosystem is a sprawling network of more than 65 mirror websites that has caused losses running into thousands of crores for the Telugu film industry. Investigators say the accused also diverted lakhs of users from piracy platforms to illegal betting sites, fuelling large-scale financial fraud and data theft.
Hyderabad City Police Commissioner V.C. Sajjanar revealed that the key accused, 39-year-old Ravi Emandi, a native of Visakhapatnam and now a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis, a country in the Caribbean, was arrested from an apartment in Hyderabad. Two of his associates were arrested earlier in September. The police commissioner said the piracy network used domains and dozens of mirror extensions to host newly-released Telugu films in HD quality, causing heavy financial damage to producers and exhibitors.
Investigators found out that the accused, who holds degrees in computers and business administration, ran a web services firm in Hyderabad before venturing into piracy. He launched iBomma in 2019 during the COVID-19 lockdown. The website became one of the most visited piracy portals, drawing nearly 5 million users per month. Police seized hard drives containing nearly 21,000 films across multiple languages. The commissioner further said the accused is also implicated in four other FIRs relating to movie piracy, online cheating and data theft.
