Businessman caught in IPL betting case

Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), Delhi, has arrested businessman BimalRamgopalAgarwal for laundering money pertaining to an Indian Premier League (IPL) T-20 betting case. Incidentally, Mr Agarwal is the same person who earlier duped the Maharashtra government by supplying sub-standard bomb suits.

Mr Agarwal was produced in Patiala house court on Wednesday in connection with the IPL case, and remanded to the ED’s custody for further investigation.

While Mr Agarwal’s arrest comes under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), sources in the ED said that he had been seeking money in the name of a senior ED officer, who was also subsequently arrested in the same case.

The ED was investigating the case in which its former joint director (Ahmedabad zone), J.P. Singh, had been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on charges of corruption. In its FIR, the CBI stated that certain officers of the ED, while investigating cases of money laundering in betting and other such activities, had allegedly demanded and accepted huge illegal gratification from the accused and suspected persons.

The ED’s Ahmedabad unit was probing the Rs 2,000crore IPL betting scandal and the Rs 5,000 crore money laundering case against allegedhawala operator, Afroz Fatta, where the suspects had allegedly sought favours. The CBI claimed that huge bribes had been taken by these officers as quid pro quo for various acts of omission and commission. Mr Singh and others have been charged with under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).