Re: Arrest Over Cricket 'Match-Fixing' At Lords
[note]All related news articles have been merged here. Please try not to open a separate thread for a news article related to this scandal.[/note]
Re: Mohammad Amir earns sympathy amid scandal
Amir is only 18 years old, hes a kid. He was lured in this trap by Salman Butt and Kamran Akmal. They should just give Amir a slap on the wrist cuz he's on fire right now, he's the next great bowler of the world.
Maa ka ladla bigar gaya...
[QUOTE]
Kamran Akmal no longer part of Scotland Yard investigation into alleged spot-fixing, ICC says - BBC
[/QUOTE]
so thats proves that he is just plain incompetent.
Re: Arrest Over Cricket ‘Match-Fixing’ At Lords
Kamran is clear
now the question remains will they clear the others too 
Re: Arrest Over Cricket 'Match-Fixing' At Lords
Malik's and Kamran's name would turn up later, along with chota chetan Umar Akmal as well; don't you guys worry. The mafia is in pretty deep sh*t.
Re: Arrest Over Cricket 'Match-Fixing' At Lords
I'll save my 2 cents and wait for the conclusion of the investigation.
Re: Arrest Over Cricket 'Match-Fixing' At Lords
I really want ICC to ban Pakistan for few years like they did to south africa.
The whole board and its players are guilty one way or other. The players attitude pretty much proves they are guilty. It is time teach these ladlay players and the board some lesson. Pakistan own their cannot fix this. We are all corrupt.
Re: Arrest Over Cricket 'Match-Fixing' At Lords
I really want ICC to ban Pakistan for few years like they did to south africa.
The whole board and its players are guilty one way or other. The players attitude pretty much proves they are guilty. It is time teach these ladlay players and the board some lesson. Pakistan own their cannot fix this. We are all corrupt.
I totally agree. kamran is clear and the other scumbags are gonna get cleared too..
Re: Arrest Over Cricket ‘Match-Fixing’ At Lords
Mazhar Majeed arrested over ‘money-laundering’ claims
Mazhar Majeed, the agent at the centre of the match-fixing scandal, has been arrested by customs officers over claims that he has laundered tens of millions of pounds through non-League football club Croydon Athletic.
The 35-year-old businessman, along with his wife and another man, were detained and questioned by officials from HM Revenue and Customs as part of a second criminal inquiry related to the alleged corruption racket.
Detectives are following the money trail of the alleged global betting scam and the focus yesterday moved to Croydon Athletic, which Majeed has owned since 2008.
He is said to have boasted to an undercover reporter that he used the club as a front to launder the proceeds from the spot-fixing racket. “The only reason I bought a football club is to do that,” he allegedly told the News of the World.
It is understood that the HMRC investigation into Majeed had been secretly running for some time before the tabloid sting exposed the cricket scandal.
A source told Telegraph Sport that players at the Ryman Premier Division club were on wages of up to £500 a week – three to four times higher than other teams in the league.
“Money is being pumped in and it is quite a bit higher than it should be for the division and for that level of football,” the source claimed.
“It is absurd when you consider the crowds are between 150 and 250 people. That sort of crowd doesn’t warrant the sort of money being paid.”
Majeed’s wife, Sheliza Manji, also has links to the football club.
Officials are investigating whether they were clearing “dirty” money from illegal betting deals by secretly investing it in the club, without declaring it, and then siphoning it off into other secret accounts.
Despite allegations that large amounts of money have been pumped into Croydon AFC, official company accounts show that only meagre amounts of tens of thousands of pounds had been invested in the past two years.
A spokesman for HMRC said: “Three individuals were arrested on Sunday on suspicion of money laundering, two 35 year-olds (male and female) from the Croydon area, and a 49 year-old male in the Wembley area, as part of an ongoing investigation. They have been questioned and bailed pending further inquiries.”
The arrests came immediately after Mr Majeed had been bailed and released by Scotland Yard detectives on Sunday night.
He is now under investigation on three fronts.
The Metropolitan Police are probing claims that he ordered Pakistani players to deliver deliberate no-balls during the Test match at Lord’s, after Majeed was allegedly handed £150,000 by the undercover tabloid reporter.
Investigators from the ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Securities Unit are looking at wider fears concerning up to 80 Tests and one day games after Mr Majeed reportedly claimed that he had been running the racket with seven Pakistani players for “about two and a half years” and added “we’ve made masses and masses of money”.
At the centre of the criminal inquiries will be his tangled web of business dealings.
Manjeed has been a director of 26 listed companies over the past decade, 20 of which were set up on the same day.
Of these firms, just three are still trading with two owing him a total of £162,000 in loans.
One of the other companies is in receivership having been unable to repay a £800,000 loan on a property in Croydon, and another was liquidated after owing £586,000.
His wife was a director of one of the dissolved firms.
The couple live in an £800,000 six-bedroom mansion in Croydon, which was searched by police and tax officials on Sunday, as well as an Aston Martin sports car.
A spokesman for Croydon AFC, who now face an uncertain future and an FA inquiry, said they were unaware of the HMRC investigation but added that they would help in any inquiries. A previous statement said that the club was “shocked and devastated” by the allegations about their owner.
Re: Arrest Over Cricket 'Match-Fixing' At Lords
^^ yep just read this.. and a lot more to come.
Re: Arrest Over Cricket 'Match-Fixing' At Lords
The plot thickens.
Re: Arrest Over Cricket 'Match-Fixing' At Lords
whats latest
Re: Arrest Over Cricket ‘Match-Fixing’ At Lords
Waqar Younis tries to keep players focused
As three Pakistan players were summoned to meet officials in London following allegations of match-fixing, coach Waqar Younis has said he will do all he can to focus the rest of his squad ahead of the T20 and one-day series against England.
The Pakistan Cricket Board, London’s High Commission for Pakistan and the country’s sports ministry in Islamabad are set to hold a conference call to discuss the immediate futures of Test captain Salman Butt, opening bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif and wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal.
*
Butt, Amir and Asif will travel to London today to meet PCB officials abd it is expected the quartet will be asked to withdraw from the forthcoming Twenty20 internationals and one-day internationals, which begin on Sunday at Cardiff.*
Waqar said: "We will try to get the team up again and make sure that we deliver the best we can in the next few games, that’s all I can do.
“There is no doubt it is a big challenge, but I will try to make the most of it and I’ll try to make sure everybody is nicely focused on the games.”
The weekend’s allegations in the News of the World named the four players in connection with a plot to deliberately bowl no-balls to order in the recently concluded fourth Test at Lord’s.
Mazhar Majeed, a Croydon-based businessman, was subsequently arrested in connection with the matter and questioned for 24 hours before being released without charge on police bail on Sunday evening.
Butt, Asif and Aamer were also interviewed by police at the team hotel and had their mobile phones confiscated.
There have been calls for the players involved to be left out of the side for the remainder of the tour but PCB chairman Ijaz Butt stressed on Monday night that the allegations remain just that, with no charges proven, and therefore there are no immediate plans to suspend the players.
International Cricket Council chief executive Haroon Lorgat, meanwhile, is seeking a swift resolution to his organisation’s investigation into the affair.
Lorgat said: "I intend to get across to London myself to make sure that such occurrences on Thursday may not transpire, in that we’ve concluded before then what we have to do.
“But it is evidence we are trying to gather. It is a difficult process, allegations have been levelled - serious ones, if I may say - and we will do our utmost to ensure that before any players who are found to be guilty actually take the field of play, (they) are brought to book.”
No media were allowed into Somerset’s County Ground at Taunton ahead of today’s Pakistan training session as the county, at the request of the England and Wales Cricket Board and the PCB, implemented a complete lockdown on access.
Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik is desperate for his players to prove their innocence - but warned that anyone found guilty would face draconian penalties.
He said: "If there has been a conspiracy against our team, or to defame Pakistan, then we would like to uncover the facts and exonerate ourselves.
“But at the same time, our entire leadership has agreed that if any player is found to have been involved in this scandal then we will make an example out of him.”
Re: Arrest Over Cricket ‘Match-Fixing’ At Lords
Younis sends notice to News of the World over Majeed connection
KARACHI: Pakistan’s former captain Younis Khan has sent a legal notice to the British tabloid which had alleged that he had also signed brothers Mazhar and Azhar Majeed, who act as agents for several Pakistani cricketers.
Reliable sources close to Younis said, the former captain instructed his lawyer, Ahmed Qayyum to issue the notice to ‘News of the World’ for publishing a report which said that Azhar and Mazhar were the agents of Younis.
The source said Younis was one of the few Pakistani players who had refused to sign Azhar and Majeed as agents for them in England.
M azhar Majeed is at the centre of a new match-fixing scandal and was arrested and later released on bail for trying to defraud bookmakers.
Mazhar claimed that he had paid bribes to some Pakistani players, including captain Salman Butt, for spot-fixing in the fourth Test against England at Lord’s.
Mazhar’s claims have set off a major investigation by the ICC and the Scotland Yard into fixing allegations.
“Yes the notice has been sent and in it Younis has demanded that the newspaper publish a denial and also pay damages of $10,000 pounds towards the flood relief fund for the millions of Pakistanis displaced by the floods,” the source said.
“The brothers approached Pakistani players to sign them on during the 2006 tour and Younis refused,” the source added.
The brothers are believed to have formalised their relations with members of the Pakistan squad on the 2006 tour and, though it remains unclear whether any official agreement was signed, over a number of years Azhar and Mazhar have handled various sponsorship and marketing contracts for the players in the UK.
Younis stepped down as captain of the Pakistan side last November after an ODI series loss to New Zealand, claiming that he no longer had control over his players.
He was called up for the ODI series in Australia where he played under Mohammad Yousuf’s leadership. Soon after the series he was punished by a PCB inquiry committee which ruled that he would not be picked for future Pakistan squads for an indefinite period of time.
Younis appealed against the decision when it was referred back to the PCB by a tribunal. It has remained there, however, reportedly due to personal differences between PCB chairman Ejaz Butt and Younis.
Despite calls by a number of ex-players, Younis has not returned either to the Test or ODI side since the Australia series.
Re: Arrest Over Cricket ‘Match-Fixing’ At Lords
**PAKISTAN TRIO SET TO MISS TOUR MATCH
**
By David Clough, Press Association Sport England Cricket Reporter
The three Pakistan players at the centre of the spot-fixing allegations look certain to be absent from Thursday’s tour match against Somerset.
Test captain Salman Butt and seamers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer were due to be questioned in London tomorrow by Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ijaz Butt and his country’s high commissioner.
That would have clarified the trio’s position ahead of the match at Taunton, but now the meeting has been pushed back 24 hours and will take place at the same time as the team are due to be on the field.
The PCB’s decision to announce a unilateral, “internal” investigation followed three days of high-level crisis-management talks between them, the International Cricket Council and the England and Wales Cricket Board.
Time is short, following the weekend’s newspaper allegations that seamers Aamer and Asif bowled no-balls to order during the Lord’s Test - with the knowledge of Butt, and the intention of helping to defraud illegal bookmakers.
Croydon-based businessman Mazhar Majeed was subsequently arrested in connection with the matter but released without charge after 24 hours of interviews at Scotland Yard.
All three players are in the Pakistan Twenty20 and one-day international squad, due to face England from Sunday onwards.
But having travelled with their team-mates from London to Taunton yesterday, they stayed behind at the tourists’ hotel on the outskirts of town while their colleagues practised at the County Ground this afternoon.
Team manager Yawar Saeed announced: "Three players - Butt, Asif and Aamer - are going to London.
“It is an internal investigation.”
Multiple inquiries are therefore ongoing, as Scotland Yard and the ICC continue their own investigations.
Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the country’s highest law enforcement agency, has also sent three investigators to the UK.
Reports have suggested other matches may have been fixed and up to 80 international Tests could form part of the police investigation.
The claims are the latest in a string of match-fixing allegations to dog the Pakistan team since the 1990s.
Pakistan prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who officially launched the FIA investigation, said yesterday: “The latest fixing allegations have bowed our heads in shame.”
There was a fresh development today when HM Revenue and Customs announced three more arrests have taken place, in connection with the betting allegations.
An HMRC statement read: "Three individuals were arrested on Sunday as part of an ongoing investigation into money laundering.
"This includes two 35-year-olds - a male and a female - from the Croydon area, and a 49-year-old male from the Wembley area.
“These individuals were arrested, questioned and have been bailed pending further investigation.”
Wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal, the fourth player named in the press allegations, has not been summoned to the High Commission in London - and practised in Taunton today.
Butt, Asif and Aamer had their mobile phones confiscated by police following interviews on Saturday night, at the hotel used by Pakistan during the Lord’s Test - which they lost by an innings.
Pakistan’s new surroundings in Somerset offered a perhaps welcome relief from the scenes which accompanied their departure from London yesterday, when security was tight and angry supporters made their feelings knows as the team bus pulled away.
Television crews and journalists have followed the tourists west, but public outrage at what some suspect may have taken place was far less evident in Taunton today.
There nonetheless remains an urgency to find a fair resolution to the situation, in the short and much longer term.
ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat was forthright yesterday in confirming the world governing body’s “zero-tolerance” of match-fixing in any form - promising “prompt and decisive action”, later suggesting it was his organisation’s preference that the trio do not feature.
Public reaction in Pakistan is predictably damning already, and a Twenty20 and then limited-overs series involving Butt, Asif and Aamer may not be not viable in the current circumstances.
It is against that turmoil that the PCB and ICC must negotiate a reasoned but urgent response.
Re: Arrest Over Cricket ‘Match-Fixing’ At Lords
Pakistan holds closed-door training session at Taunton
By KHALID HUSSAIN | ARAB NEWS
Published: Aug 31, 2010 22:38 Updated: Aug 31, 2010 22:38
TAUNTON, England: Pakistan were back to work for the first time after crashing to their worst ever defeat in the Test series finale at Lord’s when they held a closed-door training session at the County Ground here on Tuesday.
*
As expected, they left behind Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir and though team manager Yawar Saeed insisted that they had some work back in the team hotel and would join their team-mates later.*
Media people, who tried to enter the ground to watch the practice session, were sent back by the security as Pakistan tried to remain away from the glare two days after a ‘spot-fixing’ scandal involving several of their players rocked world cricket.
Pakistan are in Taunton to play a warm-up match against Somerset on Thursday ahead of their limited-overs series which will begin with a Twenty20 International in Cardiff on Sunday.
Though it seems unlikely that Pakistan will field the tainted trio in the series-opening clash against England, a final decision is yet to be taken by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on whether to retain or suspend the three players.
Sources say that the PCB is under increasing pressure from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the International Cricket Council (ICC) to suspend the trio but Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman, has so far insisted that he would take no such action against his players unless they are proved guilty.
Butt has in fact summoned Salman, Asif and Amir to London for what sources in the Pakistan team are describing as a crucial meeting on Wednesday (today).
The three players, who are accused of having links with match-fixers, have so insisted that they are innocent.
The mood in the Pakistan camp, meanwhile, remains somber even as the tourists try to focus on the Sept. 5-22 series against England that will include two twenty20 Internationals and five One-day Internationals.
“We’ve seldom been under so much pressure,” a Pakistan team player, who requested anonymity, told Arab News.
“It reminds some of us of Kingston (Jamaica) after we lost against Ireland (in the 2007 World Cup) and then Bob (Woolmer) died,” added the player who was a part of the national team that crashed to a shocking defeat against minnows Ireland three years back. A day later, their coach Bob Wooolmer, a former England Test batsman, died in mysterious circumstances prompting the local authorities to launch full-fledged investigation. Pakistani players were also interrogated but were later cleared by the local police.
With just four days left in the first Twenty20 game in Cardiff, Pakistan are facing a major problem because if Salman, Asif and Amir are axed, which is almost certain, then they will have just 13 players available for selection.
There is this option of calling a few players from Pakistan but a source said a final decision will only be taken on Thursday.
“The PCB is expecting some concrete stuff on the case by Thursday after which it will take a decision on whether to call any reinforcements from Pakistan,” said a source.
Re: Arrest Over Cricket ‘Match-Fixing’ At Lords
Pak sees a ‘conspiracy’ as 3 more held in UK
LONDON/ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan establishment appeared to be closing ranks behind its tainted cricketers even as three fresh arrests were made in the UK in connection with the spot-fixing scandal.
Meanwhile, the three players at the centre of the controversy were summoned to London from Somerset, where the team is practising, to meet PCB officials and the High Commissioner.
British customs officials said they had arrested three people as part of a probe into the money-laundering angle. Some reports said among those detained was Mazhar Majeed, the alleged fixer arrested earlier and bailed out on Monday.
***It is also learnt that the cash found by Scotland Yard from Salman Butt’s room amounted to £50,000. Butt reportedly claimed the money was his sister’s trousseau.
Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik said there have been conspiracies against the team in the past and it was necessary to determine whether the latest allegations were a bid to defame the country. However, the Lahore HC has summoned seven cricketers on September 7 to face treason charges.
Re: Arrest Over Cricket 'Match-Fixing' At Lords
So they really really want 3 players to be out of Pakistani team and that's what only they are looking for? Maybe the whole plot is to drop them for ever?
Re: Arrest Over Cricket ‘Match-Fixing’ At Lords
Re: Arrest Over Cricket ‘Match-Fixing’ At Lords
Amir should not be punished instead be rehabilitated: Atherton
LONDON: Young pacer Mohammad Amir, one of the three Pakistani cricketers named in a spot-fixing scandal, should not be punished and instead be helped with rehabilitation if found guilty, feels former England captain Michael Atherton.
*"Admittedly, if these allegations are proven accurate, to reprieve Amir at the expense of anyone else involved would be arbitrary and, in a sense, unfair. It would give succour to those who argue - rightly - that the events of the past few days are a direct consequence of a failure to act on the excesses of the past.
*
“Yet that would be to ignore the obvious: that Amir is a potent symbol right now, of what was, what is and what might be,” Atherton wrote in his column for The Times today.
He said the 18-year-old fast bowler should not be punished as an example to the rest rather he should be made more aware of the issues.
“He should be educated, rehabilitate and held up as an example of what can be achieved. Amir’s rehabilitation should be at the heart of the cleansing of Pakistan cricket. The brilliant young bowler is not the cause of the problem but the most tragic consequence of it,” stressed Atherton.
Re: Arrest Over Cricket 'Match-Fixing' At Lords
^^
of course still nothing has been proved .....if nothing is proved they should play