Bookie invested in real estate
The crime branch investigators probing the IPL betting case have learnt that Shobhan Mehta alias Shobhan Kalachowki, who is one of the top five bookies of the country, had invested his betting money into the city’s construction business. His interrogation also revealed that not only had he invested the builders’ money in betting, but also invested diamond merchants’ money in gambling. Meanwhile, the crime branch on Monday arrested one more bookie in the case, Rakesh Jaipur, taking the total number of the arrested people in the case to 18.
Crime branch sources said that in India, Shobhan and Pawan Jaipur (wanted) are the only two big bookies who placed very huge bets and undertook massive dealings. The police is now trying to figure out how they managed to generate the large sums of money before big games. As far as Pawan Jaipur is concerned, the police believes that he may have used the money he generated through his chain of jewellery shops in Rajasthan. When Shobhan was interrogated in this regard, investigators learnt that since he and his family is in the diamond business, he has good contacts. “He developed a good rapport with some of the big diamond merchants, who also betted through him. He also involved the builders’ money in betting, and then invested large sums of money in the construction business through a Malad-based builder,” said a crime branch officer.
Shobhan used to place bets with many bookies across the country. One of these bookies, Rakesh Kumar Ramchandra Gangwal alias Rakesh Jaipur (50) was arrested on Monday from Jaipur by the property cell of the Mumbai crime branch and seized his three cellphones. “Jaipur resident Rakesh had received five phone lines from Ramesh Vyas, who was already arrested in the case for providing call conferencing between Indian bookie and Pakistan, Dubai bookies,” said PI Nandkumar Gopale of the property cell.
“Rakesh, who is reportedly into diamond shading business since the last 7-8 years, was in contact with Badri Jaipur, Pawan Jaipur, Ashwini Agrawal alias Tinku Delhi and Shobhan. Shobhan and Tinku are arrested whereas Pawan had fled to Dubai. Badri, who is from Sujangadh of Rajasthan, is believed to be hiding in Kolkata nowadays,” said another officer.
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