A former Ranji cricketer, Rishi Arothe, has been arrested by the Vadodara police on charges of cheating businessmen and an aspiring cricketer. This comes after two separate cases were filed against him in the past week. Rishi is son of former India women cricket team coach Tushar Arothe.
Accused of Multiple Cheating Cases
Rishi Arothe was apprehended by the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Vadodara city police on Wednesday from a hotel in Thane, near Mumbai. This followed two complaints filed against him at different police stations in Vadodara – Manjalpur and Raopura.
Inspector V.S. Patel of the SOG revealeda as per The Indian Express, “Police teams searched across Bangalore, Goa, and Mumbai to locate Arothe after the cheating complaints were registered.”
“Using a combination of technical surveillance, human intelligence, and IP address tracking, he was finally traced to a hotel in Thane,” Inspector Patel added. Arothe was detained on March 12th and brought back to Vadodara, where he was formally arrested by the Manjalpur police station on Wednesday.
Modus Operandi and IPL spot
The Manjalpur police station complaint alleges that Arothe, along with three others, cheated a businessman out of Rs 29.5 lakh. They allegedly lured the businessman with the promise of setting up a club in Goa.
In a separate case filed at the Raopura police station, an aspiring cricketer from Panchmahal district accused Arothe of duping him of Rs 5.27 lakh. The aspiring cricketer alleged that Arothe promised him a spot in the Indian Premier League (IPL) in exchange for the money.
Arresting Developments
Interestingly, this arrest comes just days after the SOG arrested Arothe’s father, Tushar Arothe, a former coach of the Indian women’s cricket team. Cash amounting to Rs 1 crore was seized from Tushar Arothe’s residence in Vadodara during the raid. Investigations revealed that Rishi Arothe had sent this money to his father from Nashik via an angadia service (an unofficial money transfer system).
Following his arrest by the Manjalpur police, the Raopura police are expected to seek custody of Rishi Arothe for their own investigation into the alleged cheating of the aspiring cricketer. These developments have cast a shadow on the former cricketer’s reputation and raised serious questions about his activities.