Sachin Vaze extorted money from cricket bookies: Crime branch to Mumbai court

A local court has extended the police custody of former Mumbai Police officer Sachin Vaze by seven days for allegedly extorting a builder. The crime branch will probe if he has extorted others as well

A metropolitan magistrate court on Saturday extended the police 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 ex-cop has extorted large amounts of money from cricket bookies by threatening to frame them in false cases.

Former Mumbai cop Sachin Vaze was dismissed from service after NIA arrested him in the Antilia explosives scare and the Mansukh Hiran murder cases. (PTI FILE)

Jagtap pointed out that Vaze had extorted the money at the behest of former Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh, and sought the extension of his custody for further interrogation by the crime branch to find out if he has extorted money from other persons as well.

Vaze has been dismissed from the service after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested him in the Antilia explosives scare and Mansukh Hiran murder cases.

The Goregaon police had in August registered an extortion case against Singh, Vaze and four civilians – Sumeet Singh, Alpesh Patel, Vinay Singh and Riyaz Bhati.

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

The crime branch has already arrested Sumeet Singh for allegedly extorting money from Agarwal at Vaze’s behest. In this case, the court had previously issued non-bailable warrants against Param Bir Singh, Riyaz Bhati – a purported aide of gangster Dawood Ibrahim – and another accused named Vinay Singh.

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

To corroborate the allegations of extortion, the crime branch has collected Vaze’s voice samples to match with the voice recorded on the complainant’s phone calls. Agarwal had claimed that he had recorded Vaze’s phone calls, in which the ex-cop has talked about the alleged extortion activities involving him and Singh. Agarwal had submitted the recorded audio clips to the crime branch.