Bid to extort Amruta Fadnavis: Bookie Anil Jaisinghani held in Gujarat after 750km chase

MUMBAI: Cricket bookie Anil Jaisinghani, booked for trying to bribe and then extort from deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis’s wife, was intercepted at Kalol, about 55km northwest of Vadodara, in Gujarat late on Sunday night after a 750km chase over 72 hours.

Jaisinghani, 56, was brought to Mumbai and handed over to the Malabar Hill police. He will be produced in court on Tuesday.

“During ‘Operation AJ’, the police nabbed Jaisinghani from Gujarat. The accused had dodged the police twice. He was using multiple electronic devices,” said Balsing Rajput, DCP cyber police. He confirmed Ulhasnagar resident Jaisinghani, said to be among the top cricket bookies in the state, faces 15 cases.



Jaisinghani’s daughter Aniksha, 24, was arrested on Thursday in the case in which Amruta Fadnavis, Devendra’s wife, filed an FIR on February 20. Aniksha, who is in police custody, will also be produced in the same court.

Jaisinghani’s location was traced to Bardoli in Gujarat on Friday evening. The next day, it showed in Surat. When cops reached, his location was near the airport. The long road chase began till they intercepted him near Kalol toll naka around Sunday midnight on the way to Godhra. He was travelling in a car with a Maharashtra registration.




“He would not use a SIM card to communicate; instead he made VoIP calls (over internet). He would use a dongle taken in different people’s names and every five to six days, he would change the dongle. We studied his VoIP data’s IPDR for a year and began our probe with it,” said Rajput.

The police recovered two mobile phones and two dongles from Jaisinghani, another phone and a dongle from a relative, and his driver’s phone too. The relative and driver too are being questioned.