iBomma kingpin Immadhi Ravi remanded to 14-day judicial custody

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police arrested Immadhi Ravi for allegedly being involved in uploading and distributing pirated movies on the iBomma and Bappam piracy networks. He has been remanded to 14-day judicial custody.

According to police, Ravi, who had been running operations from the Caribbean islands, was produced before a magistrate and shifted to Chanchalguda Central Prison. Ravi is a native of Visakhapatnam and is said to be a highly educated technical expert capable of hacking servers.

Police seized hundreds of hard disks, along with banking and financial records, and recovered Rs 3 crore in cash from his possession. Police are currently analysing the hard disks.

Ravi had been on the run since October 1, the day a case was registered against him. He reportedly travelled to Amsterdam on October 3 and kept changing IP addresses to avoid detection.

Police said he returned to Hyderabad a couple of days ago, assuming the trail had gone cold, but Cyber Crime Police traced him through mobile signals and arrested him at a house in Kukatpally late on Friday.

The Cyber Crime police will file a petition in Nampally Court on Monday to seek Ravi’s custody for seven days for questioning.

The accused is believed to be running piracy platforms iBomma, Bappam, and 65 mirror websites, which together attracted nearly 37 lakh monthly users. He allegedly uploaded pirated Telugu, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam films, along with OTT content, immediately after release.

Earlier, in August, the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce’s Anti-Video Piracy Cell lodged a complaint after new releases such as Single, HIT, and Kubera appeared online on their opening day