A Mumbai bookie was the link between the bookies who allegedly conspired with IPL cricketers, including S. Sreesanth, for spot fixing in matches, and underworld bookies based in Pakistan and Dubai, sources from Mumbai police told this reporter on Thursday.
The bookie was already arrested by Mumbai Crime on Tuesday night and he had revealed the names of those bookies who were arrested by Delhi police special cell for spot fixing. According to the Mumbai police, a city police team was about to be sent to Delhi to nab the Delhi bookie who was involved in fixing, but before they could proceed in their operation Delhi police in the early hours of Thursday picked up IPL players, and bookies from Mumbai and Delhi, and cracked the T20 cricket betting racket.
The Delhi police on Thursday, while giving details of the spot-fixing racket, named two bookies, Tinku and Jupitor, as those bookies who were involved in the fixing racket. But before Delhi police arrested them. Mumbai police also had their names as Mumbai-based bookie Ramesh Bajranglal Vyas had already revealed their names in the interrogation of Property Cell, which arrested him along with two more bookies from a Kalbadevi flat on Tuesday night. Joint commissioner of police (crime) Himanshu Roy confirmed that the same people have been identified by Delhi police and Mumbai police.
Sources say Vyas used to connect Indian bookies to Pakistani and Dubai bookies through call conferencing. When on Tuesday night the property cell officers seized 92 cell phones from Vyas’s flat, they found 30 cell phones were connected overseas. In this, Vyas had connected only one international call to a Mumbai based bookie Praveen Behra, who was arrested on Thursday from his residence at Bhandup. Rest all calls were connected to bookies across the country; few of them are identified as Pawan Jaipur, Bunti Jaipur, Lokesh Delhi, Master Jaipur, Kothari, Bablu, Ketan, KP, Badri Vicky, AA, Jupitor, Shobhan, Paresh, Bunty and Lotus. And the Pakistani bookies who were connected to Indian bookies through Vyas were Dr U.V.L. Javed, Master Salman, Sharif Bhai, Rehmat and Kaasim.
Since, Vyas has been connecting Pakistani bookies to Indian bookies, investigators believe he knows a lot about Pakistani bookies and the masterminds behind the whole syndicate. On Wednesday, the Delhi Police commissioner claimed that the Mumbai underworld and masterminds from overseas were involved in the syndicate. Sources say the Pakistani betting syndicate has been controlled by Chhota Shakeel.