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The arrest of Immadi Ravi, who was allegedly running popular movie piracy platforms iBomma and Bappam TV, has sparked curiosity among Telugu film viewers. The Hyderabad police arrested him on November 14, weeks after the website’s administrators posted a message challenging law enforcement authorities to nab them.
Police have stated that Ravi, who was allegedly running iBomma since 2019, made at least Rs 20 crore in the past five to six years. Around Rs 3.5 crore has been seized from his bank accounts, and police are looking to analyse more bank accounts in his name to track his income sources. Much of his income was from ad revenue generated by promoting illegal betting apps, Hyderabad police believe.
While there are multiple cybercrime complaints against iBomma and Bappam TV for streaming copyrighted material, including movies and web series in Telugu, Hindi and other languages, the crackdown followed a recent complaint from the Anti-Video Piracy Cell of the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce (TFCC).
TFCC had said that about 65 mirror domains associated with iBomma or Bappam TV were illegally hosting newly released theatrical and OTT films, often in HD quality. The TFCC anti-piracy cell estimated that the Telugu film industry suffered losses of around Rs 3,700 crore in 2024 due to piracy.
Ravi’s arrest is being seen as a major step in the crackdown on movie piracy, especially for Telugu films.
Who is Immadi Ravi, and how was he running his piracy platforms?
Thirty-nine-year-old Ravi is a native of Vizag. He graduated from Andhra University with a BSc Computer Science degree, and also has an MBA degree from ICFAI Business School in Mumbai. After initially starting a tech company, he allegedly switched to hosting piracy websites around 2019.
According to Dara Kavitha, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Cyber Crimes, Hyderabad, Ravi sourced newly released movies on the day of their release on Telegram. “New films are recorded in theatres with hidden camcorders and are put up for sale on Telegram. They are available for around Rs 40,000 to Rs 1 lakh, with big movies of popular stars selling at higher rates,” Kavitha said.
The police said Ravi himself did not have any direct contact with those filming or selling these theatre prints.
Announcing Ravi’s arrest to the media, Hyderabad Commissioner of Police VC Sajjanar, who was flanked by major Tollywood actors and filmmakers, including Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna, SS Rajamouli and others, said that some of the accused in piracy cases had even attempted to “send malware to people working in the film industry to gather data.”
However, DCP Kavitha said that in Ravi’s case, so far, they haven’t found any evidence of successfully accessing high-quality prints of movies before they were released on OTT platforms.
Ravi also allegedly sourced OTT content through third-party software and hosted these videos on his websites.
By hosting his servers in foreign locations and running his websites from multiple countries, he made it extremely difficult for law enforcement agencies to trace his activities, identify hosting servers, or gather actionable technical details, Commissioner Sajjanar said.
On analysing the website, payments related to it and the agency hosting ads on it, the police tracked down a company called VR Infotech, linked to Ravi.
“From analysing transactions of four of his bank accounts, we found that he had earned around Rs 20 crore in the past five to six years. He was earning around Rs 10 to 15 lakh a month, travelling across Europe frequently, and seemed to have a lavish lifestyle. He also had multiple IDs in different names,” DCP Kavitha said.
Police have found passbooks, chequebooks and other documents related to around 35 bank accounts in Ravi’s name.
Ravi had renounced his Indian citizenship and obtained citizenship of Saint Kitts and Nevis, a Caribbean island. “The reason he gave was that it made it easier for him to do business, to collaborate with his business partners who are mostly based abroad,” Kavitha said.
Ravi frequently travelled to countries such as the Netherlands, Switzerland, the USA, Thailand, France, and Dubai. Police believe he was collaborating with gaming and betting app operators, earning income by promoting their ads on his websites.
“He told us that ad revenue was his main source of income,” DCP Kavitha said.
She added that the police were looking at the possibility of using money seized from Ravi to compensate victims who lost money to betting apps or cyber fraud as a result of visiting his websites, under Section 107 (attachment, forfeiture or restoration of property) of the BNSS (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita).
Admitting that it could be difficult to track down victims whose losses were directly linked to the ads on iBomma or Bappam, DCP Kavitha said they were looking to see if any such victims came forward with complaints.
Police also said he had data of around 50 lakh users of his websites, and cautioned people against sharing information with such websites that could make them vulnerable to cyber fraud.
After allegedly posing an open challenge to the police on the iBomma website, Ravi arrived in Hyderabad from France last week.
“He arrived in Hyderabad just as we were considering issuing a lookout circular, since he mostly lived in Europe. He wasn’t expecting to be tracked down, so he went straight to his apartment in Kukatpally, which he often returns to,” Kavitha said.
Ravi took nearly two hours to open the door when the police showed up at his doorstep on November 14. When he finally let them in, they found his mobile under an almirah with Telegram and other apps deleted, and his laptop hidden under the roof of the bathroom.
Earlier in September, the Hyderabad police had arrested five people based on TFCC’s complaint over piracy of movies such as #Single, Hit: The Third Case, and Kubera on websites including 1TamilBlasters, Movierulz, and 1TamilMV.