The Crime Branch Criminal Investigation Division (CB-CID) of Tamil Nadu police on Friday conducted raids on the premises of a luxury hotel and a business hotel in the city, both owned by the elusive Vikram Aggarwal, even as he appeared before the Mumbai Police in the evening.
Sources said the CB-CID had obtained search warrants from the court to raid the premises of Radisson Blu Hotel Chennai City Centre and Fortune Hotel Select Palms. Two separate teams carried out the raids simultaneously at both the hotels which, according to the officials, led to the seizure of incriminating documents and electronic devices that were purportedly used for betting. “The raids were aimed at unearthing further evidence regarding the involvement of Vikram Aggarwal in the present case,” a senior CB-CID official said.
The official was also hopeful that they would be able to strengthen their scientific evidence linking Aggarwal to the betting racket and his association with the city-based kingpin Kitty alias Uttam C Jain, who is presently in their custody.
The officials were clueless as to why Aggarwal did not respond to their summons.
According to informed sources, the CB-CID officials placed a request before the Mumbai Police to hand Aggarwal over for further investigation into the betting scam.
The officials had issued a look out notice for Aggarwal to prevent him from fleeing the country after he failed to respond to summons and turn up at the CB-CID office at 10.30 am on Thursday.
Vikram Aggarwal, known as Victor in the betting circle, was the key link between the cases probed by the Mumbai Police and the CB-CID. He was the one who introduced actor and bookmaker Vindu Dara Singh to his friend and BCCI chief N Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyyappan. Both Vindu and Gurunath are now in Mumbai Police custody facing marathon custodial interrogation in a bid to track down the entire fixing racket and its links with the IPL teams in the recently concluded sixth edition. Sources said the CB-CID officials were also planning to take Sanjay Baffna, another bookie, to custody for interrogation.
Meanwhile, a Mumbai police officer said that phone call records showed that Aggarwal was in regular touch with Meiyappan and Jupitor, another bookie who is still at large. “The police are keen to find out the context in which he was talking to these two persons,” said the officer. According to the Mumbai police, Aggarwal said he had been betting on cricket matches for the past two years.