Despite the raging spot-fixing controversy around the Indian Twenty20 League, betting continues unabated in the capital, crime branch sources said on Wednesday.
The crime branch is using its technical wherewithal to assist the special cell in tracking the fourth ‘module’ of bookies involved in the current fiasco, highly placed sources said.
“All senior inspectors, regardless of their technical background, have been tasked with intercepting and monitoring the telephonic conversations of bookmakers based in the national capital region,” said an officer. “So far, we have around 150 to 200 bookies on our radar.”
According to the police, technical surveillance so far has revealed that gamblers are still at it and are following last year’s modus operandi of taking bets in moving vehicles on major transit routes and highways in and around the capital.
Senior officers associated with the operation claimed the immediate aim was to get their hands on at least four to five men linked to more than the dozen bookies who got Rajasthan Royals players Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan into spot-fixing.
Tracking
“Bookmaking is somewhat of an incestuous activity. Our primary aim is to help track some men who constitute the fourth module in this particular case before proceeding to make arrests and put bookmakers behind bars for good,” the officer said.
Tracking
“Bookmaking is somewhat of an incestuous activity. Our primary aim is to help track some men who constitute the fourth module in this particular case before proceeding to make arrests and put bookmakers behind bars for good,” the officer said.
The exercise was also aimed at verifying the links bookies might have with young, state-level players representing Delhi, they said. “As far as we are concerned, everyone who is in touch with a bookmaker is a potential criminal. We will make arrests as and when we are able to gather enough evidence,” the officer added.