‘Sachin Vaze extorted huge sums from cricket bookies’: Crime branch tells court

Special prosecutor said Vaze extorted huge money from cricket bookies at the behest of Param Bir Singh

A metropolitan magistrate court on Saturday extended Mumbai police crime branch custody of dismissed assistant police inspector Sachin Vaze by seven days after special prosecutor Shekhar Jagtap informed the court that the 52-year-old controversial cop has extorted huge money from cricket books by threatening to frame and arrest them in false cases, the Mumbai police crime branch informed a metropolitan magistrate.

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Jagtap pointed out that Vaze has extorted huge money from cricket bookies at the behest of Param Bir Singh and sought an extension of his custody for his further custodial interrogation to find out if he has extorted money from others as well.

In August, the Goregaon police registered an extortion case against Singh, Vaze, who is arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the Antilia explosives scare and Mansukh Hiran murder cases, and four civilians - Sumeet Singh, Alpesh Patel, Vinay Singh and Riyaz Bhati.

The case was registered on the basis of a complaint by Agarwal, alleging that the accused extorted ₹11.92 lakh from him. They also threatened to register cases against his hotel restaurant and bar.

The crime branch has already arrested Sumeet Singh, who allegedly used to collect money for Vaze, on whose orders money was allegedly collected by Sumeet Singh from Agarwal. In this case, the court has already issued non-bailable warrants against Param Bir Singh, Riyaz Bhati, a purported aide of gangster Dawood Ibrahim, and one Vinay Singh.

Vaze has been arrested in this case on November 1 and was remanded to the crime branch custody. He was presented before the Esplanade metropolitan magistrate court on Saturday as his earlier custody remand ended. Appearing for the crime branch, advocate Jagtap sought an extension of his custody.

He informed the court that the crime branch has collected Vaze’s voice samples in order to prove the number of phone call conversations with Vaze that the complainant had recorded. In these calls, Vaze talked about his alleged extortion activities involving him and Singh.

Agarwal submitted the recorded audio clips to the crime branch which will now try to match the (Vaze’s) sample voice with Vaze’s alleged voice in the recorded conversations with Agarwal to corroborate allegations of extortion against Singh, Vaze and others.