Disgraced jockey moves to Aussie jail
SYDNEY: Disgraced Australian champion jockey Chris Munce was whisked to jail in Sydney on Tuesday after being transferred from Hong Kong, where he was imprisoned over a tips-for-bets scandal.
Munce, sentenced to 30 months behind bars in March, will serve out his term in a minimum security prison under a deal worked out between the Australian government and Hong Kong authorities.
The jockey was taken from the airport through an underground car park after his early morning arrival, witnesses said. He is expected to be held at Sydney's Silverwater prison.
Munce, who rode Jezabeel to Melbourne Cup glory in 1998, was convicted of trading race tips for bets placed on his behalf by a businessman.
He was arrested with 250,000 Hong Kong dollars ($32,000) in his pockets and a paper of notations allegedly relating to bets on races, but some insiders said he would not have ended up in jail if the case had happened in Australia.
The acclaimed jockey, who has also won two of Sydney's prestigious Golden Slipper races, was charged for handing out information on the horses he rode and their likelihood of winning in return for bets being placed on them.
Munce circumvented the ban on jockeys placing bets by approaching a local businessman, Dinesh Daswani, who acted as a go-between to pass information to an elderly Hong Kong businessman named Andy Lau.
Lau placed individual bets of up to 20,000 Hong Kong dollars on the jockey's behalf. When the horse won, Munce would get most of the winnings, minus a cut for the middleman and the initial stake. Lau absorbed the losses.
The three cashed in on 18 races Munce won between December 2005 and July 2006. With a tips success rate of 72 percent, they collected hundreds of thousands of dollars.
After Munce was arrested, Daswani turned evidence in return for immunity.
AFP
(China Daily 09/26/2007 page24)
