New Delhi, May 21 : Delhi Police commissioner Neeraj Kumar has said that the stakes in IPL6 matches involving Rajasthan Royals were so high that bookies made Rs 2.5 crore from six balls by pacer Sreesanth in the May 9 match at Mohali. All this within seven minutes, he added.
In an interview to Indian Express, Neeraj Kumar said within seven minutes on May 9 evening, bookie Chandresh Patel made Rs 2.5 crore from Sreesanth's second 'fixed' over in Mohali.
"The stakes were very high. Our investigations have revealed that Patel made Rs 2.5 crore in that over. Bookies like Patel and others have become rich overnight. We have evidence for this," the police chief said.
Chandresh Patel, who lives in Andheri (East) in Mumbai, is one of the 14 bookies arrested by Delhi Police in the spot fixing case.
Chandresh Patel is a property dealer who has invested his ill-gotten crores in real estate in Maharashtra.
The police chief said, Sreesanth's interrogation had revealed he was unaware of his teammates' involvement in the racket.
Sreesanth was under the impression that he was working alone, along with his friend and bookie Jiju alias Biju Janardhanan..
"Sreesanth thought he was alone. He did not know that Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan were working their deals with different sets of bookies. Ankeet Chavan was fixed by Chandila and Amit Singh.
"We have a taped interception of Chandila demanding a cut for the May 15 match because he believed he had introduced the bookie to Chavan. Chavan was roped into spot-fixing by Chandila," the police chief said.
The police chief said, as of now, there were no evidence of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim or his aide Tiger Memon being directly involved in the spot-fixing operation.
"At the moment we do not have any proof of these so called "underworld men" indulging in spot-fixing directly.
"In mid-March, when our officers were intercepting calls made by intermediaries for the underworld in the course of an anti-terrorist operation, they discovered that these intermediaries were talking to bookies.
"During these conversations, we overheard the names of these cricket players, after which we swung into action," he said.
The intermediaries, Kumar said, were based outside India, and were communicating with the bookies using code names.
He said the police were obtaining legal help to book the accused, including the three cricketers, under the tough Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
"We are examining the possibility of booking them under MCOCA. Some persons have criminal cases of similar nature against them. One of our teams is in touch with the legal team," Kumar said
