Sreesanth threw parties using spot-fixing money,say cops

Chandila bought a pair of sunglasses; cops in Mumbai to recover Sreesanth's money.

The probe into IPL spot-fixing scandal has revealed that pacer S Sreesanth had thrown three parties for his friends at the JW Marriott Hotel in Jaipur between May 1 and 15. Reportedly several bookies too had attended.

The police have accounted for the money he had spent for the purpose. Special Cell investigators claimed that Rs 1.5 lakh,Rs 1.2 lakh,Rs 2.8 lakh were spent for the three parties by Sreesanth. The police have recovered the copies of the bill and will use it as evidence.

The police have also accounted Rs 5 lakh of the Rs 10 lakh that the player received from the bookies. Sreesanth used this money to spend on parties and to buy two mobile phones for his female friends in Jaipur. The player reportedly gave Rs 5 lakh to Jiju Janardhanan,who is also in police custody.

Event manager Abhishek Shukla who reportedly helped in hiding Sreesanths money was taken to Mumbai to recover it. Shukla was arrested on Monday and knew the player for over five years. Immediately after Sreesanths arrest,Jiju had contacted Shukla and asked him to clean up Sreesanths room at the Sofitel Hotel. Police sources said Shukla also helped hide Jijus money in Mumbai. He has been slapped with Section 201 of IPC for destruction of evidence.

Sources said a Malayali actor,Rajiv Pillai,was with Sreesanth at the time of arrest. The police said Pillai has no role in spot-fixing. He called Jiju out when Sreesanth was nabbed. When Jiju stepped out,he too was held. The police also said that the probe does not reveal any spot-fixing link between the pacer and arrested bookie Vindoo Dara Singh.

The police have also recovered from bookie Deepak Oberoi eight VISA cards that were reportedly used to pay shopping expenses of the players. They also have evidence that proves that arrested bookie Chandresh Patel had travelled with players to Jaipur,Hyderabad and Chandigarh.

The Special Cell had on Monday arrested the fourth set of bookies with whom player Ajit Chandila was in touch. The arrested were Shukla,Vicky Chowdhury,Monu Sharma and Nitin Jain. The four had met Chandila on May 12 just before the KKR vs RCB match. They had asked him which team would win and Chandila predicted KKR would. The prediction turned out to be correct. Monu and Nitin are property dealers. Monu lives in Krishna Nagar and Nitin owns a polyfill factory in Loni and runs a property dealing business Laxmi Properties in Karkardooma.

Khan market shopping

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With the money he got from spot-fixing,Chandila reportedly bought a pair of sunglasses from a prominent optician in Khan Market. A police team was sent to quiz the shop owner. Chandila reportedly told the police that several players had visited the shop and that the owner knew several cricketers.

The police who are on the lookout for Amir,whose name figured in Tinku Mandis questioning,said he is allegedly linked to the underworld and foreign financiers. Amir reportedly had introduced four boys to bookie Chandresh Patel projecting them as players belonging to Sunrisers Hyderabad team.

Patel then agreed to pay Amir Rs 32 lakh and placed bets for Rs 5 crore. But neither the team Amir predicted won nor did Chandresh make any profits.

However,Amir,who took the money as advance,fled. The police are also on the lookout for the four boys Amir had introduced.