Former U19 cricketer arrested for duping youngsters with promise of big break

Over the last twelve months, the crime branch of the Mumbai Police has been on the man hunt for a gang of frauds who have been duping aspiring cricketers in the country. Recently, they have arrested a former U19 cricketer in the same regard. The reports in the Indian Express note that these frauds promised the youngsters of big breaks in the IPL and in the domestic circuit.

They told the cricketers that they have a very strong network and are capable of putting players in the big teams. The recent arrest of the U19 cricketer, named Ravindra Wadekar (23), is the fourth arrest made in this case. Wadekar is under the police custody at the moment. Wadekar was one of the promising U19 cricketers in Hyderabad before he took to such illegal practices.

Wadekar’s role

The police explained that Wadekar had an influential hand in the racket and he was the one who made approaches to the young cricketers. “Wadekar played an important role in approaching youngsters. He would convince them about investing money with the other three accused and collect money on behalf of Barate,” an officer said.

Being a part of the U19 level cricket, Wadekar knew a lot of aspiring players and hence duped them easily. Over the last one year, he had managed to pocket over INR 68 Lakh from his practices. The mastermind of the racket is Vijay Barate (43). Barate had started his ‘sports club’, named R N Sports Club, and managed to get it affiliated to the Hyderabad team in the IPL.

They were assigned the task to hunt young cricketers. Barate made full use of the power to extort money from the aspiring players. He used to show his pictures with famous cricketers to fool the aspiring cricketers. Apart from mastermind Barate, former U19 cricketer Wadekar, two others have been arrested as well. They are Dinesh More (23) and Jeevan Mukkadam (28).