Last updated at 10:05 PM on 1st September 2010

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1308176/Was-cricket-fixers-20m-fortune-laundered-tiny-football-club.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Customs officials suspect more than £20million was laundered through a non-league football club owned by the alleged mastermind of the Pakistan betting scandal.

Millionaire Mazhar Majeed, the sports agent accused of orchestrating the global betting scam that has rocked 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.

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 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 noballs 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.

Asked as he left the team's hotel whether he would be returning, he replied : 'Why not?'

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.

But there is no suggestion any of the officials or members of the management team would have known if they were being paid with 'dirty money'.

Informed sources confirmed Customs officials believe 'substantially' more than £20million was laundered in Croydon Athletic, although official company accounts reveal only tens of thousands of pounds have been ploughed into it.

Checks yesterday showed the company should have filed accounts by March this year for the previous 12 months but had failed to do so.

In June they were warned they had three months to complete the accounts otherwise the company would be dissolved.

British-born Majeed has also been arrested by the Metropolitan Police on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud bookmakers. He is reported to have accepted £150,000 in cash from an undercover reporter for information about the Lord's Test.

The Mail revealed yesterday that a blizzard of telephone calls to and from Majeed at the time of Pakistan's games around the world over a two-year period are being studied by investigators, who are looking at events in more than 80 internationals played by the team.

They also want to question actress Veena Malik, 32, the former girlfriend of Asif, after she claimed he had told her last year there was big money to be made from betting scams.

Speaking to a TV station in Pakistan, she said: 'I told him not to become involved but he would not listen.'

Malik, who split with Asif earlier this year, claimed he used servants' telephones to call bookmakers and named an Indian bookmaker she alleged paid him for 'spot-fixing' during games.

'He told me he was offered £26,000. I advised him not be part of such activities,' she said. 'He went ahead and demanded £130,000.'

The actress alleged that Malik had been 'totally involved' with the betting syndicates and claimed that many other players and officials were also involved.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who is currently in Pakistan, is understood to have discussed the scandal yesterday with President Asif Ali Zardari.

Mr Clegg said: 'This is a country that lives and breathes cricket. I think people want it looked at, want it investigated, want people held to account.'