Bidari tries Al Capone route against bookies

The city police commissioner has written to the income tax department, asking it to investigate properties and other assets owned by bookies arrested for accepting bets on matches during the on-going cricket World Cup.In much the same manner in which the US government nailed notorious gangster Al Capone -- he got away with murder but was caught for tax fraud -- Shankar M Bidari, is hoping to put these bookies away for a longer time on evasion of income tax.
In his letter, Bidari has named 10 top bookies, including the notorious Narahari and Fighter Ravi, who were arrested recently, and has asked the I-T department to come down hard on these offenders.
Bidari claims each of the 10 bookies named in the list owns property and other assets amounting to at least Rs 5 crore. Police claim the money for these investments came from their illegal betting business. Securing convictions for tax fraud is, perhaps, the easier way out, but Bidari can hardly be faulted for taking this route.
The laws against betting are weak at best -- the maximum sentence is a fine of Rs 500 and imprisonment for six months.
Over the last few weeks, Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths had arrested several bookies including Shibhu, Benaka, Soni, Mangi Lal, Harish and Akki Pete Babu.

Police had seized cash and other material such as laptops and mobile phones, found in their possession. Police had also busted another betting racket involving four brothers and had seized Rs 2.79 lakh in cash, a car, a two-wheeler, laptops and 20 mobile phones from them.

But much to their chagrin, many of the bookies obtained bail within a day. CCB sleuths say they are still investigating leads and claim that they have enough evidence to prove that the property which these bookies possess was bought with money obtained from their illegal betting business.

Alok Kumar, joint commissioner (crime), said: “Our investigations reveal that these bookies had bought a lot of property with money obtained through their illegal business. So we prepared a list of bookies and our police commissioner sent it to the income tax department, asking officials there to probe these properties and investments and take action.”

In his letter, Bidari has included details of the properties owned by these top bookies and also details pertaining to
benami properties and other investments made by them in different fields.

Several of the bookies also had links with others across the country, police claim.