Police investigators trying to piece together the IPL betting jigsaw have found that the bookies and their underworld contacts used codenames to refer to each other as well as cricketers to avoid detection by security agencies who could be tapping their phones.

The Mumbai Crime Branch, which decoded some of these names with the help of Vindu Dara Singh, found that while S Sreesanth was Rotru, Gurunath Meiyappan was Guru and Vindu was Jack.

The codenames were found in the diaries and iPads recovered from bookies. Police sources said some of the taped conversations between bookies contained these codenames.

"In the tapes, bookies could be heard using the code names. For instance, Guruji (Meiyappan) was heard speaking to Jack (Vindu): "lagaya Rs 5, khaya Rs 3" (Guru is betting Rs 5); Shanu (another bookie) said to Jack: "2 gaya" (Shanu lost Rs 2); "Ramesh bhai 1 aaya" (Rameshbhai gets Rs 1); "PD zero balance" (bookie Pravin Behra has lost and there is no balance in his account)," said an officer.

Other snatches of conversations included, "PJ bhai 1 aaya chidiya" (Pawan Jaipur, one new punter has come), "SJ bhai, Dilli-wale baba--zero balance" ( Sanjay Jaipur, Delhi-based bookie Tinku has zero balance); Bunny to Jack: "new entry - 0.50 lagaya, 0.75 diya" ; and "Victor boss - 0.25 aaya" (Chennaibased hotelier Vikram Aggarwal has bet 25 paise).

A police officer said bookies and underworld members using nicknames and code was nothing new. "They do use codes to evade or to mislead security agencies, in case their mobiles are under surveillance," said an officer.

Sources said the police are tightlipped about the taped conversations due to the Supreme Court directives in the Radia tapes case. In bookie code, Skipper Dhoni was helicopter, West Indian cricketer Chris Gayle was Raavan, Lasith Malinga was Makki, and Yuvraj Singh was Model.

Not just bookies and players, even models and pimps were given code names. Police told the court that one of the mobiles that Meiyappan used was in the name of one Kamalnath P.


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