UK Customs suspects Majeed laundered 20 m pound fortune through football club

London, Sep.2 (ANI): British Customs officials suspect that businessman-cum-spot fixer Mazhar Majeed laundered over 20-million-pounds through a non-league football club he owned.

Millionaire Majeed, who is accused of orchestrating the global betting scam that has rocked Pakistan and world cricket, is said to have boasted he invested vast sums of money from the racket in Croydon Athletic Football Club.

The 35-year-old tycoon, his wife Sheliza Manji and an unidentified man from Wembley have been arrested over money laundering allegations linked to the previously impoverished Ryman Premier Division Club.

Majeed invested in the Croydon Athletic Football along with club chairman Dean Fisher and co-owner Roy Price, the Daily Mail reports.

Despite attracting crowds of only 200 to 300, players at Croydon Athletic are among the highest paid in non-league football, some allegedly earning more than 500-pounds per week.

Large amounts of money have also been ploughed into improving the infrastructure of the South London club since Majeed bought it in 2008.

Majeed, the agent for several Pakistan players implicated in the racket, is said to have told an undercover reporter from the News of the World that laundering the proceeds was 'the only reason I bought a football club'.

The three players at the centre of the scandal - 18-year-old fast bowling sensation Mohammed Aamer, bowler Mohammed Asif and Test match captain Salman Butt - will be interviewed today by Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ijaz Butt and their country's high commissioner in London.

It is alleged the players took cash as part of a betting scam in which Aamer and Asif bowled three no-balls at predetermined times during the Test match at Lord's against England last week.

Despite demands for the trio to be suspended or stand down from upcoming one-day internationals, Butt, 26, appeared to signal their determination to play on.

The Customs probe is focused on money being allegedly 'washed' through Croydon Athletic and is understood to have begun before the newspaper's sting operation.(ANI)