Tale of the sting

The setting was a classic undercover strategy, specially where an impression needed to be conveyed of opulence and power. In this case, the NOTW team pretended to be members of a betting syndicate (two males accompanied by a female secretary). It was also a classic ruse to flood the scene with pinhole cameras. The presence of three undercover reporters at the table meant that there was a reassuring number of hidden cameras. In any such undercover scenario, the more camera circuitry you have swamping the scene, the more insurance you have. You never know which camera could go kaput on you, and it is always good to bank on the reliability of numbers.

Ironically, at this meeting Majeed abused “Pakistanis” quite a lot, saying something to the effect that he “liked to deal with Indians” instead. He also sat on the table with two phones—one a BlackBerry mobile and the other a downmarket phone wrapped in polythene. He admitted to changing his Sim cards every other week, and he had a ready schedule of the Pakistan cricket team on one of his mobiles which he referred to every now and then.