Another key bookie held in Mumbai

In a significant development in the ongoing IPl betting scam investigations, the Mumbai Police on Friday took into custody key bookie, Shobhan Mehta alias Shobhan Kalachowkie, taking the total number of arrests in the case to 17.

Mehta (48) was picked up by a visiting team of Mumbai Crime Branch’s Property Cell in Goa and later brought to the metropolis, where he was placed under formal arrest. He will be produced before a city court on Saturday afternoon. Acting on a tip-off, the city crime branch sleuths had rushed to Goa on Wednesday and zeroed in on Mehta, while the latter was on board a casino boat on Thursday. 

Mehta and his family member had been in Goa since June 28. “While his family members spent most of the time in hotel room, he would be away at the boat casino most of the day,” a senior police officer said.

With Metha’s arrest, the number of persons booked by the Mumbai police in connection with the IPl betting scandal has gone up 17.  The 16 persons arrested earlier included: BCCI chief N Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, Bollywood actor and son of late wrestler Dara Singh, Vindoo Singh Randhawa and bookie Ramesh Vyas.     According informed police sources, Mehta had been in regular touch with arrested bookies Vyas, Ashwin Agarwal alias Tinku Delhi, as also wanted bookies Pavan Jaipur and Sanjay Jaipur, during the IPl tournament in May this year. 

Mehta had placed bets and reportedly earned to the tune of Rs 60 crore from betting in the sixth season of IPl, sources said.The investigators had traced Mehta’ last call to Mumbai on May 15, when he was conversing with Chandresh Patel alias Jupiter, who was arrested by Delhi police in connection with the IPl spot fixing case.

A native of Palanpur in Gujarat,  Mehta dropped out of college in 1982 while he was doing his first year B Com. He used to run errands for one of his diamond merchant relatives. Reports of investigating agencies say that Shoban started out as a punter in 1987 and gradually became a bookie.

Along the years,  he is alleged to have  established a well-connected network spreading across Mumbai, Jaipur, Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi. 

It is alleged that he was also present at the marriage reception of a leading cricketer, several years ago. He was arrested in 2005, along with millionaire Deepa Bar dancer Tarannum in a match-fixing case. Tarannum had met a prominent Sri lankan spinner in a hotel near Deepa Bar (now defunct) that year. Names of actors and players had cropped up in that case, but the police had only arrested Shobhan Mehta and Tarannum. Both of them were released on bail later.