Hyderabad Cybercrime Police on Monday arrested 32-year-old Immadhi Ravi, the shadowy mastermind who single-handedly built and ran the country’s most destructive movie piracy empire through iBomma and Bappam TV, a Rs 20-crore operation that bled producers of hundreds of crores by leaking new releases within hours of their theatrical premiere.

The computer science graduate from Telangana had engineered an almost untouchable system: servers strategically placed in the United States, Netherlands, and Switzerland; over 110 registered domains; and an army of up to 65 mirror sites that popped up faster than authorities could block them. High-profile victims included recent blockbusters Mirai, Dude, Kantara Chapter 1, and the much-hyped OG starring Pawan Kalyan himself. During raids on Ravi’s residences, police recovered Rs 3 crore in hard cash, froze multiple bank accounts, and seized laptops containing the complete backend dashboard of his illegal empire.

Commissioner CV Anand told the media that Ravi began his piracy journey in 2019 and rapidly scaled up, recruiting uploaders inside theatres, paying for camrip recordings, and uploading full HD copies before the first-day first-show crowd even left the cinema halls. “This was not a small-time operator; it was a professionally run criminal enterprise causing irreparable damage to Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and even Hindi cinema,” he said, revealing that months of digital surveillance and international cooperation finally led investigators to Ravi’s doorstep.

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The arrest instantly drew praise from Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister and megastar Pawan Kalyan, who took to X to call it a “crucial breakthrough” and personally thanked Commissioner Sajjanar and the cybercrime team. “Piracy gangs had become so powerful that even big films were finished on day one. Today’s action sends a clear message that no one is beyond the law,” he wrote, adding that the same unit’s crackdown on betting mafias and Ponzi schemes has made Hyderabad one of India’s safest cities against online crime.

With Ravi now in custody and his global infrastructure being systematically dismantled, investigators are digging deeper into cryptocurrency wallets, overseas payment gateways, and possible accomplices in other states. For the first time in years, Tollywood producers are breathing easier, hoping that opening weekends will once again belong to packed theatres instead of illegal torrent links.

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