CAUGHT OUT AT LAST?
Facing extradition 20 years on, the middleman at heart of cricket’s match-fix scandal
STROLLING near his London home, this is the businessman at the centre of one of the biggest cricket match-fixing scandals.
For the past four years, Sanjeev Chawla has fought attempts to extradite him to his native India to face a string of charges relating to match-fixing during South Africa’s tour of the country 20 years ago.
But the 52-year-old’s battle has now ended after the Court of Appeal ruled that he should be returned to India.
Police from Delhi are now set to travel to the UK and detain Chawla before putting him on a plane back to India. He should be out of the UK by February 20.
Chawla was arrested in London in June 2016 but Westminster magistrates concluded in October 2017 that his human rights could not be guaranteed in Delhi’s Tihar prison, where he was to be held, and his extradition was denied.
District Judge Rebecca Crane was concerned about reports of overcrowding and the risk of violence and torture inside the jail. But the High Court overturned the decision on appeal and on February 27, last year, the then home secretary Sajid Javid signed an extradition order in relation to Chawla.
For the past ten years Chawla has been living with his wife Deepika and their two young sons in a £1million rented six-bedroom property in Temple Fortune, north London.
The fugitive runs a catering business in Kennington, south-east London.
When the Mail approached Chawla last week he refused to comment on when he was likely to be taken back to India. According to court papers, India wanted Chawla extradited due to his ‘alleged criminal conduct between January and March 2000’.
Police in the country tapped and taped phone calls between Chawla and the then South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje during which One-Day and Test matches against India were discussed.
Chawla is accused of being the middleman between Cronje and bookies in India who rake in millions each year from the country’s illegal gambling industry. Chawla had his Indian passport revoked in 2000, but having moved to London in 1996 he obtained a UK passport in 2005.
He is understood to have become heavily involved in cricket betting in the late 1990s and was linked to Rajesh Kalra, who is one of the biggest cricket betting operators in the world.
The two men are understood to have met in 1999 in London, where they reportedly worked on plans to fix matches.
Cronje – who died in a plane crash in 2002 – was unveiled as a cricket cheat and banned from the game for life by the King Commission inquiry held in South Africa in 2000. Fellow players Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams were banned for six months, while Nicky Boje and Pieter Strydom were exonerated.
Cronje told the Commission how he first met Chawla along with a man called Hamid Cassim – said to be close to the South African team – in a Durban hotel during a triangular series involving England and Zimbabwe in early 2000.
‘They said I could make a lot of money if we would lose a match,’ said Cronje.
The Home Office said: ‘Sanjeev Chawla has now exhausted his rights to appeal.
‘Once the final orders from the court have been received, arrangements will be made for his extradition to take place within 28 days.’
Test captain sacked in match-fixing scandal
The Mail, April 12, 2000