Police in India have shut down a fake cricket league that enlisted farmers and
unemployed men to pretend to be professional players in
an alleged scheme to trick Russian sports gamblers.
[CROSSTALK] No, this story is insane.
It is insane.
So here's what happened, let's break it down.
Police say the plot took place in a rural part at the western
Indian state of Gujarat.
Here's what we know.
The games were streamed on Youtube, but
the narrow camera angle did not show the wider backdrop to viewers.
Instead, digital crowd noise was piped into the footage accompanying
commentary by a voice that resembled that of Harsha Bhogle,
a household name among cricket fans worldwide.
Now they got real creative here, okay?
The fake leagues, batters and bowlers similar to baseball's pitchers,
wore uniforms of major Indian Premier League teams.
And then they were paid about $5 per game and
are being treated as witnesses instead of suspects in this investigation, okay?
So here's what the stream of this fake game looks like.
Let's take a look at the video.
I'll explain what's happening.
So they look to be on a barren patch of dirt with a carpet nail
to the ground serving as the cricket pitch.
There are no close ups of the players or shouts of the crowd,
probably because there isn't a shout of the crowd.
There isn't a crowd.
And then the Youtube channel had just 255 subscribers.
That's it, okay?
So these aren't actual professional cricket players,
they're just farmers and unemployed men who got hired to propose as such.
So because it was all a ruse, the organizers set up a Telegram
channel to facilitate wagers from gamblers from Russia, right?
So Russian gamblers are actually betting on these cricket games,
these phony cricket games.
One of the four men involved in organizing the scheme had worked in a pub in Russia
and had gotten some of his contacts, they're interested in betting on cricket.
>> Yeah, I read several articles on this to try to determine who was the dumbass.
So was it the Russian gamblers who looked at them and
thought, that's a professional cricket game.
Even though it's like on a patch of dirt and
it doesn't look like they're running very hard and none of this makes any sense.
And maybe presumably the ethnically
Indian guy robbing in Russia in the bar.
Maybe he thought these guys they think India is so broke, they don't realize that
we have actual stadiums and grass and etcetera and maybe they'll buy this.
And if they did, then the Russian gamblers are the dumbasses.
If somebody told me, yeah,
this is a really important Indian cricket league here.But why don't you bet $10,000?
First of all, I ain't got that kind of money, but are you insane, right?
But they piped in real, there's no audience of course.
But they piped in the audience noise to make it look a little bit more realistic.
Or my question is, are the dumbasses the guys who are trying to fake this and
like they're like, we'll get them, we'll pretend it's real cricket and
then they'll buy it and then we'll make so much money, right?
>> It seems like it worked.
>> No, You see that's the unclear part.
That's why I read into it because it was naturally curious.
So far they think like it was only like $4,000 worth of bets and
then setting this whole thing up might have cost twice as much.
>> That's right.
>> Okay.
>> They might have ended up spending more than they took in from the Russian
gamblers.
That's right, yeah.
Yeah, so the guys who set it up might be the dumbasses.
>> Yeah, I mean look, I don't think there are any winners in this story.
Although very smart psychologist by the name of Jordy Peterson told
me that the degeneracy is just in the United States and Russia invaded
Ukraine specifically to prevent Western degenerate see into Ukraine.
>> Yeah, this is the first noted d generous e coming out of Russia.
Yeah, so there are no degenerate gamblers.
No, look, I read a really long article about Matt tv's
experience in Russia decades ago.
Right during glasnost as they had Russia had first gotten freedom.
I assure you there was many things that were degenerate in Russia at the time.
Unbelievable degenerate things that happened.
You know why?
Cuz Russia's are human and that's what happens, and Indians are human.
And so some guys trying to scam the other guy etcetera.
It's a funny scam.
It's inventive, it's creative, they spend a lot of time on it.
But I always think with criminals, if you just spent that time on a real job,
you'd probably make way more money.
>> For real.
Yeah man, get after it.
Do that instead.
>> Yeah, in fact, I know that for a fact specifically on this
topic cuz a friend of mine that that I halfway grew up with,
I roomed with did actually set up a cricket league in India on Youtube and
it made a tremendous amount of money.
>> Really?
>> Yeah, so do something real,
you'll make way more money instead of wasting your time on two bit scams.