Mumbai: Bookie Anil Jaisinghani taken into custody by ED in 2015 money laundering case

Cricket bookie and hawala operator Anil Jaisinghani was taken into custody by the Ahmedabad Unit of Enforcement Directorate (ED) from Taloja Central Jail, Navi Mumbai, on Friday night in a 2015 money laundering case registered in Gujarat.

The ED is probing ₹10,000 crore hawala racket of cricket betting run by a syndicate of bookies led by Jaisinghani and had raided his Ulhasnagar residence in May 2015 but he managed to escape faking heart ailments and getting admitted in ICU.

Jaisinghani wanted since 2015

He managed to evade arrest for eight years in over 17 cases registered across five states until Mumbai Police arrested him last month after case of extortion and blackmail was filed by Maharashtr Dy CM and Home Minister Devendra Fadnavis' wife Amruta against Jaisighani and his daughter Anishka.

“Jaisinghani is wanted in a money laundering case linked to IPL cricket betting racket since 2015 and was evading arrest. He was taken into custody on Friday night and taken to Ahmedabad zonal office,” confirmed a senior ED official.

Investigation led ED to raid and other bookies

ED is likely to attach his several properties, including a three-star hotel in Shirdi, two huge bunglows in Ulhasnagar, benami flats in Thane, Indore, Goa, Ahmedabad, Karnal, Gurgaon and Chandigarh.

Investigation into the channeling of cricket betting funds to Dubai and Pakistan via hawala had led ED sleuths to raid bookie Sukhminder Sodhi and further led to the arrests of prominent bookies Tommy Patel, Kiran Mala, Dharmin Chauhan, Chirag Parikh, Ritesh Bansal, Ankush Bansal, Mukesh Sharma, Ashish Grover and Paresh Bhatia.

Jaisinghani conspired with iother bookies

“Anil Jaisinghania was running the bookies cartel and diverting funds to Dubai and Pakistan. Several summons and arrest warrants were served at his Ulhasnagar residence but he remained elusive,” said an ED official.

According to senior officials, Jaisinghani conspired with other bookies to fix Ahemdabad ED Joint Director JP Singh and late Enforcement officer Sanjay Kumar to cripple the investigations into the cricket bookie syndicated linked to Dawood Ibrahim.