Immadi Ravi, a criminal-minded techie, who was arrested by the Cybercrime police of Hyderabad on Saturday, had resorted to piracy of nearly 21,000 films through his notorious piracy website iBomma, Hyderabad police commissioner V C Sajjannar said on Monday.
Disclosing the details to reporters on the arrest of Ravi, the police commissioner said Ravi was running 65 mirror websites, launching a new domain each time authorities blocked one.
“His hard drives contained 21,000 pirated films, spanning titles from the 1972 classic Godfather to recent releases like OG. He earned around Rs 20 crore from piracy, of which police have seized Rs 3 crore so far,” he said.
The accused also held data of nearly 50 lakh subscribers, posing a major cybersecurity threat.
“Such a massive dataset in the hands of a criminal is extremely dangerous,” Sajjanar warned. “Cybercriminals can easily exploit it, he warned.
Sajjanar said that digital piracy had caused massive losses to the Indian film sector. The arrest of Ibomma’s key operator, Imaddi Ravi, he said, was a major step in curbing the menace.
“We have booked four additional cases under the IT Act and Copyright Act against him,” Sajjanar said. “Earlier, we also arrested individuals named Prashanth and Shivaraj in piracy-related offenses. But Ravi caused far greater harm. Besides enabling piracy, he was also promoting betting apps. Many people lost their lives after getting trapped in these apps.”
According to the Commissioner, Ravi had established international links and built a highly sophisticated network requiring coordination with national agencies.
“He used secret cameras to capture new films for piracy. He was skilled in website design, software development, and server deployment, ensuring quick resurrection of the platform whenever authorities blocked a site,” he said.
Upon opening his website, users were automatically shown betting app promotions, drawing huge numbers of unsuspecting people into illegal online gambling.
“People have lost thousands of crores due to these betting apps,” Sajjanar noted.
The police chief said Ravi would be interrogated further once in custody, and more arrests connected to his network were expected.
Sharing further details about Ravi, Sajjanar said the accused hails from Visakhapatnam and has a B.Sc. in Computers. Using different aliases, he obtained driver’s licences and PAN cards in Maharashtra.
“When police began pursuing him after film industry complaints, he renounced Indian citizenship and acquired citizenship of St. Kitts and Nevis, a Caribbean nation known for investor-passport programs. He lived in France and frequently travelled to multiple countries,” the commissioner said.
He launched iBomma in 2019, and since then uploaded over 21,000 pirated movies, hosting servers in the U.S., Switzerland, and the Netherlands. He purchased 110 domains, rotating through them each time enforcement agencies blocked one.
“We will bring down the rest of this network as well,” Sajjanar said, adding that the investigation will expand internationally.
