Enforcement Directorate seeks 10-day custody of two bookies held in IPL betting case

Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday sought ten-day custody of two Delhi-based men, accused of involvement in a multi-crore rupee cricket betting racket, from a court in Ahmedabad.

Ritesh Bansal, alias `Bharat Delhi', and his brother Ankush Bansal were produced before the court for Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) cases. Judge AP Bhojak adjourned the hearing to Thursday.

ED had, on May 10, arrested the duo from their house in Shashtri Nagar in Delhi after conducting searches in connection with a Rs 4,000-crore money-laundering case against the syndicates which took bets on IPL T-20 cricket matches.

ED says in the remand application that these two were associated with Tommy Patel and Kiran Mala, two Gujarat-based bookies who were arrested in March.

Patel and Mala allegedly took bets through the website `BETFAIR.COM', says the plea. Ritesh and Ankush operated from a house in Palam Vihar in in Gurgaon, Haryana, it says, adding that it has seized eight laptops, a CPU, 57 cellphones and Rs 26,30,000 in cash from the house.

The duo are be examined about transactions routed and settled through various bookies in India and abroad to find out the quantum of money involved, it says.

The agency, which carried out a raid at a farmhouse near Vadodara in March and claimed to have busted the racket, has so far arrested 15 bookies.