The noose around three cricket players, arrested over the spot-fixing scandal, tightened further with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) registering a separate case against the accused players on Thursday under the stringent provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Sources in the agency said, “The Enforcement Directorate registered the case after going through the FIR of the Delhi police filed in this regard which led to the arrest of three players and more than 10 bookies”. The sleuths of Enforcement Directorate will soon record the statements of all arrested players and bookies, sources added.
The agency will soon go through the reports of various other police departments which have recently begun their probes in this regard. Apart from Delhi and Mumbai police, the income-tax department has also begun its probe in this regard.
“The ED officials will also collect bank accounts of the three players. Role of certain bookies of Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Pune and Jaipur is also under the scanner of the ED in connection with the case. Majority of the bookies of these cities are directly connected to the D-company”, sources said. The Enforcement Directorate is already scanning a number of hawala transactions and operatives active in the country.
It is also working to approach their counterparts in some West Asian countries to get information on international syndicates working in the domain of match-fixing or spot-fixing. The Enforcement Directorate will also probe the alleged investments made by some benami companies based in Mauritius, Cyprus, the Caribbean Islands and the Bahamas and Virgin Islands in certain IPL teams, sources said. There are a total of 18 foreign-based benami companies, which reportedly invested huge funds in the several IPL teams, sources said, adding that the same is under investigation. If required, the ED will also probe the ownership pattern of certain IPL teams, they added.
The ED is already probing alleged foreign exchange related violations in the earlier editions of the T20 Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament and has issued penalty notices in many cases.