The international cricket betting racket unearthed by Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday has swelled to over Rs 4,000 crore. ED sleuths had held 13 people, including two bookies Kiran Patel alias Kiran Mala and Girish Patel alias Tommy Patel – a BJP corporator in Unjha nagarpalika and also a director in APMC, from a farmhouse on Vadodara’s outskirts on Thursday. The agency, which is probing the case under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), handed over all detainees to Vadodara police on Friday for further investigation under gambling act.
ED had also recovered betting documents and voice recordings of last two years from the bookies. As per sources, around seven-eight big national bookies are also involved. On average, these bookies make a profit of Rs 15 lakh per match, sources said. In the ongoing cricket world cup, the bookies had a turnover of around Rs 900 crore.After day-long questioning, ED revealed that the two bookies confessed that they used to do Rs 20-25 crore business per match. Since around 200 international and club-level matches are played across the world every year, including IPL, money to the tune of about Rs 4,000 crore changed hands. ED involved top state anti-corruption bureau officials to probe the possible involvement of some police officials in the scam.
