A team of officers from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) raided an illegal casino in Margao and have arrested 12 people. This casino was run by the suspect, Rehan Mujawar. The officers have also seized gambling chips, casino machines, cash and mobiles worth about Rs 84 lakh.
Rehan hails from Navelim and has been running the illegal casino for a long time. As all state-owned casinos were shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Rehan was openly running this casino from a closed room of a building in Margao. The casino was finally taken down after many complaints by the locals. The police raided the casino around midnight and manage to arrest Rehan and his workers with a few gamblers.
Kismat Kamat, Rishabh Naik, Selvin Kulaso, Akash Khutkar, Ivan Rodriguez, Shailesh Velip, Shripad Uttam Naik, Rupesh Bandekar were working under Rehan and have been taken into custody for questioning.
Nizamuddin Masoor, Arif Hansimrad, Sarwar Syed, Rizwan Syed, Dupendra Poon, Aslam Khan, Mustafa Sheikh, Jose Perera, Sarfaraz Khan, Syed Sheikh and Zaheer Khanapuri were the gamblers who have arrested.
The place had games like Andar-Bahar, Black Jack and other casino machines. The accused persons were arrested under the Gambling Prevention Act.