Former Proteas spin bowler Gulam Bodi will have to play it straight to avoid jail and help bring down an international betting syndicate with links to India. Bodi was named yesterday as a "middleman" in a global cricketing betting syndicate allegedly involved in fixing South African Ram Slam domestic T20 matches.Cricket SA's anti-corruption unit hopes Bodi will spill the beans on cricketers who agreed to the scheme and those who approached him.Contacted by The Times, Bodi issued a one-word answer when asked if he was a focus of the probe - "No."Police have indicated an investigation will likely involve Interpol, with cyber crime, organised crime and commercial crime detectives forming a special team.But, until they are approached by CSA, which has been conducting an internal investigation since November after a whistleblower approached it, they cannot begin an investigation.Police spokesman Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said though no case had been opened, what was alleged involved organised crime."Investigating such a case will require multiple police specialists, including cyber crime, organised crime and commercial crime detectives. An investigation like this will not just be national. These types of syndicates are far bigger, reaching beyond our borders, hence the experts we will use. We look at a vast range of suspects, including the bookies."Ed Hawkins, author of A Journey to the Heart of Cricket's Underworld, said bookmakers would have made as much as $100-million off a single Ram Slam T20 match.He believes that, although players might be implicated, the bookmakers and other syndicate members will escape."He will be able to give names and telephone numbers of those he is working for. But I will be very surprised if they will waste time going after the bookmakers as they will be long gone. They will focus on Bodi and the players."The usual modus operandi, said Hawkins, would be for a bookmaker or fixer to approach a "mark" to get him to fix a match or elements of a match and to recruit other players. The game would have to be televised in India. Contact would be through cellphones, which the bookie might change every week.As for the kind of money a middleman would make, Hawkins believes it could be as much as former New Zealand Cricketer Lou Vincent said he made while playing for the now- defunct Indian Cricket League.Vincent said he received R750000 a game.A source with knowledge of the Bodi investigation confirmed the former cricketer was being probed as the middleman in a multimillion-dollar syndicate."This is incredibly sensitive. This syndicate and others like it are global. Just look where the Ram matches are screened. That's India, not here. You just need a small percentage of people to place bets and you are going to make a killing."Information on a person of interest was received in November ...He is, however, by no means the only piece in the puzzle. There are going to be many more."CSA spokesman Altaaf Kazi said they were waiting to be advised by the organisation's anti-corruption unit officials on the matter.Asked about criminal charges, he said the internal process was still under way."We cannot do anything at the moment. We cannot comment any further until we are certain about things."Asked about others implicated in the allegations, Kazi said: "We will now wait for him [Bodi] to name all the others who are implicated."Transparency International told The Times: "In 2013 Transparency International highlighted the corruption risks the International Cricket Council faced because of a lack of transparency and accountability in the governance of the game. In addition to onfield corruption, such as match- and spot-fixing, we highlighted areas such as conflicts of interest and anticorruption education."We produced a roadmap for reforms. We recommended that the ICC ethics code be enhanced and called on the ICC to publish more information on its anticorruption programmes."The ICC has not responded to these recommendations. Instead it focused on commercial issues in its structural reforms and concentrated power in the hands of the three most powerful cricket boards."Bodi, an all-rounder, represented South Africa in three international matches in 2007 - two ODIs and one T20. He also represented the Highveld Lions and the Titans.Corruption Watch executive director David Lewis said sports corruption was a serious problem, not only in match-fixing but also governance."It involves huge amounts of money ... TV rights, sponsorships. It is worth billions.''He said the latest incident was a classic case of amateurish governance in cricket.Additional reporting by Telford Vice and Chumani Bambani..