Odishatv Bureau
Mumbai/New Delhi: The first Bollywood link in the IPL spot-fixing scandal surfaced on Tuesday with the arrest of actor Vindoo Randhawa by Mumbai police which claimed to have seized Rs.1.28 crore in cash from a hawala operator.
 
In Delhi, police came out with fresh inputs of its probe in the case, saying Sreesanth, arrested along with two other Rajasthan Royal players Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan last Thursday, splurged Rs.1.95 lakh buying designers clothes in Mumbai in a single day besides gifting a smartphone to his girlfriend using money he got from spot-fixing.
 
Vindoo, son of the late wrestler-actor Dara Singh, was arrested by Mumbai Police after he was "found to be in contact with the bookies", police said.
 
Mumbai Police's Crime Branch claimed that 49-year-old Vindoo, winner of reality television show Bigg Boss season 3, was in touch with some bookies arrested in the scandal and was himself into betting. He was on many occasions spotted watching IPL matches and attending post-match parties.
 
His arrest is the first from Bollywood in connection with the latest scandal to hit Indian cricket.
 
Dressed in a grey T-shirt, Vindoo, booked under sections 420, 465, 466, 467 and 468 of IPC related to cheating and forgery, was later produced before metropolitan magistrate M N Saleem, who remanded him in police custody till May 24.
 
Police also arrested a hawala operator Alpesh Kumar Patel and seized Rs 1.28 crore from him, Himanshu Roy, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) told reporters in Mumbai.
 
Prem Taneja, a conduit for bookies who was said to be in close touch with Vindoo, was also arrested.
 
Sreesanth purchased designer clothes including denims worth Rs 1.95 lakh and gifted a Blackberry Z10 model costing around Rs.42,000 to his girlfriend , all of which he paid in cash, Delhi Police claimed as it added criminal breach of trust charge against the pacer in the case.
 
It also formally arrested a former domestic player Babu Rao Yadav, who was picked up from Delhi yesterday and questioned for his links with arrested player Ajit Chandila, in the case. With this, 18 people are arrested by the Delhi Police for their alleged roles in spot-fixing in IPL matches.
 
Police also said they have collected voice samples of nine of the 18 accused, including that of Sreesanth, Ankit Chavan and Chandila. They are also in the process of taking handwriting samples of the three players.
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