Widening the dragnet for bookies involved in the IPl betting racket, the Mumbai Crime Branch sleuths on Saturday arrested one more notorious bookie Mulund in Northeast Mumbai, taking the total number of bookies arrested so far by them to six.
Identifying the arrested bookie as one Pankaj Dhanaji alias lotus (52), the police said lotus was part of the betting syndicate managed by the key bookie in the metropolis, Ramesh Bhajranglal Vyas (52), whom the Crime Branch sleuths arrested during a raid on a tenement at lalwani Mansion at Kalbadevi in South Mumbai on May 14.
Apart from Vyas and lotus, the other arrested bookies were Pravin Ambalal Bera (30), Pandurang Govind Kadam (41), Ashok lajpatrai Vyas (32), Neeraj Veerchand Shah alias Chandu (30).
During the raid on the Kalbadevi premises on May 14, the police arrested Ramesh Vyas, his aides Kadam and Ashok Vyas and seized 92 mobile phones, 18 SIM cards, one laptop, television set, set top box, desk top computer, account books and cash collectively worth `2,30,070 from them.
Similarly, the police have seized mobiles, other gadgets used for accepting bets and interacting with fellow bookies, and cash from other arrested persons as well.
“Of the seized mobiles, Ramesh Vyas was using 30 cell phones to facilitate connecting bookies in India and Pakistan via conference call….Account books of Vyas have revealed that many of the bookies, he was dealing with were the same ones whose names have figured in the ongoing IPl spot-fixing investigations being conducted by the Delhi Police,” Mumbai’s Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Himanshu Roy told mediapersons here on Saturday.
Given that Vyas has made several revelations during his custodial interrogation that have contributed to a breakthrough in their investigations into the IPl spot-fixing scam, he is being seen as prize catch by the Crime Branch sleuths. “Vyas will be in our custody till May 20, while other arrested bookies have remanded in custody till May 22,” Roy said.
Informed sources in the Mumbai Police Crime Branch said it was the crucial lead provided by Vyas that helped the investigators land information that disgraced India pacer S Sreesanth and his friend Jiju Janardhan had checked into a five-star hotel at Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) in North-East Mumbai, on May 13.
The duo stayed in the hotel till May 15 evening, hours before Sreesanth was arrested by the Delhi Police from his friend’s residence and taken to the national Capital, the same night in connection with the investigations into the IPl spot fixing scam.
On Friday night, the city Crime Branch searched the hotel rooms of Sreesanth and Jiju and seized several allegedly incriminating materials like laptops, ipods and mobile phones. They also seized three diaries of Sreesanth, which the investigators hope would throw light on the alleged involvement of the three arrested IPl cricketers, including himself.