Mumbai bookies nabbed in Bopal, shifted base in 2008

AHMEDABAD: 'The city is safer than Mumbai', this is not claimed by our police officials. The statement came from the bookies who picked up Ahmedabad over others to conduct business involving Mumbai investors. The thriving business - that came to an end on Friday, was running for over nine months in Bopal, said officials.
According to Ahmedabad range officials, they had got a tip-off about a betting racket operating on the outskirts of the city.As there was no local men involved the racket didn't come to notice, says officials. However, a rough estimate points to a turnover of Rs 90,000 to Rs 20 lakh daily.
BD Vaghela, deputy inspector general of police, Ahmedabad Range, told media persons on Saturday that they have busted a betting racket running in Bopal with the help of Local Crime Branch (LCB) and Special Operations Group (SOG) officials of Kheda-Nadiad.
"We have nabbed Rikin Doshi (Desai), a resident of Meera Road, Mumbai, Bhavanishankar Pandit, a resident of Udaipur, Rajasthan and Hiren Vyas, a resident of Medpur, Khambhat, from Sun City, Sector 7 of Teerthraj Cooperative Housing Ltd. We have also seized a television, a laptop, 17 mobile phones, and cash worth Rs 98,000," he said. The bookies have taken bets for the ongoing England-Australia cricket series.
Another team of police officials went to Sector 3 of Teerthraj Cooperative Housing Society in Sun City where another gang of four were nabbed with three laptops, two TV sets, 34 mobile phones, an internet modem and a satellite dish. "We have nabbed Nimesh Thakkar, and Jatin Sharma, residents of Mumbai, Hiten Patel, of Khambhat, and Nathunath Parmar of Rajasthan from the flat. We also recovered goods worth Rs 1.44 lakh from the second raid. In both the places the average age of people involved is around 25," he said.
According to the officials, the gangs, independent of each other, landed in the city in 2008 and started taking bets. "The bookies used to do a brisk business during the cricket season. We are now processing records on laptops to know their clientele. However, most of the clients were found to be from Mumbai," said Vaghela.