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ICC ACU chief Alex Marshall, in an interview with ‘The Guardian,’ said the prolonged blockade and players using various social media platforms could lead to corrupt approaches and people should tread carefully. Singh said BCCI ACU is in control.
‘Known corrupters’ attempting to establish relationships with cricket players in closing
The head of the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit, Alex Marshall, revealed that “known corrupters” are trying to build relationships with cricket players by exploiting their increased presence on social media due to the forced suspension of the coronavirus into action in the countryside. No competitive match has taken place since the Pakistan Super League match on March 15, as players from around the world have been locked up.
“… we have made our players aware of the way people approach you and the modus operandi through social media. We have told them ‘look at this is how they (potential proofreaders and bookmakers) they would get close to you, ‘”said the veteran IPS officer. PTI in an interaction.
“(They will try) to behave like a fanatic and then they will try to get to know you through someone who may be your acquaintance.”
“Somehow these elements try to touch the base of the players. Most of them (players from India), every time it happens, they inform us that I have a contact.”
Most of the top players, with millions of followers, have been very active online with question and answer sessions on Twitter, interactive chats on Instagram, and live Facebook.
So, is BCCI’s ACU team tracking content online?
“Anything that can be tracked online, we do. But obviously the physical verification part of going out and verifying locations is out of the question at closing times,” he said of practical problems.
“But if something hits our notice, it automatically enters our database and once the block is complete, we will check them if the need arises.”
Singh said the easiest aspect of crawling social media content is that it doesn’t require too much manpower.
“A few men who know their work can do it quite well,” said the former Rajasthan DGP.
But Singh said that in his two-year term, all of India’s current players have been honest and upright, well aware of their responsibilities.
“We are not opponents of the players. The players and ACU are a team. It is the people who are trying to corrupt the games, they are the ones we need to track.”
He said that both monitoring social media and physically verifying corrupt approaches have their own set of challenges.
“Those who tried to corrupt players with physical presence and those who used false identifications on social networks converge at some point,” he said.
“Either it’s the same person with a fake ID trying to get close to the player or using someone on their behalf. So there is a pattern of convergence. You have to follow both lines,” he added.
Singh said even former players have approached the ACU when they have found something unusual.
“There have been things coming from current players and also retired players. There has been information coming from them. Things that doubted, that seem suspicious.”
“Any information is useful. Even if it is a false alarm, it increases the level of awareness of the players, as well as the skills of the team investigating it,” said the retired senior police officer.
There are some structural plans for the BCCI ACU that will only materialize once normality returns after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Each zone will have a zonal head as previously stated. Some zones do not have zonal heads, so we will fill those positions,” he said.
