Diamond traders funding cricket fixing

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the cricket match- fixing racket in 2000 had traced the involvement of a syndicate of Mumbai- based diamond traders with the match- fixing operations run by Dawood Ibrahim's mafia operating out of Dubai and London since 1993.

The CBI in close coordination with the Mumbai Police, Enforcement Directorate ( ED) and Customs and Excise department has unravelled the route of financing of the match- fixing racket to a powerful syndicate of diamond exporters operating out of Mumbai.

ED sources currently peg the tainted funds pumped into the racket by this diamond exporters syndicate to be around Rs 10,000 crore.

It is learnt that the syndicate which has a nexus with certain powerful politicians in the country use the legal channel by misusing the export- import schemes to launder tainted funds to Antwerp and Brussels and then route it out to tax havens in erstwhile east European nations. These funds are then re- routed to tax havens like Mauritius, Singapore, Macau, Dubai, from where they pumped into match- fixing rackets.

" It is estimated that more Rs 25,000 crore circulates in the betting racket which is directly linked to match- fixing out of which around Rs 10,000 crore is contributed by the diamond exporters' syndicate. Some politicians too are believed to use this syndicate to finance the match- fixing racket. In 2000, some of the illegal bookies who spilled out of the net of the revenue enforcement agencies who were assisting the CBI in the match- fixing probe, were handling the directly funds for the diamond exporters syndicate who are closely knit and have direct nexus with politicians. In fact, a couple of the Indians whose names figure in the list of 18 persons who have stashed their tainted funds in Germany's LGT Bank, are suspected to be linked to some of the politicians connected with cricket in India. These persons had routed their tainted funds to LGT Bank via Brussels where they have front companies to transfer tainted funds to tax havens around the globe," claimed a ED official.