Former Indian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi has claimed that persistent, life-threatening intimidation from underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his syndicate was one of the primary reasons he permanently walked away from cricket administration. In an explosive interview with news agency ANI, the founder of India’s multi-billion dollar T20 tournament detailed a series of alleged extortion attempts, assassination plots, and a dramatic late-night confrontation involving a satellite phone call directly to the fugitive gangster.
Lalit Modi, who currently resides in London following his departure from India in 2010 amidst financial and administrative investigations, stated that his refusal to facilitate illegal betting networks made him a primary target for the D-Company syndicate.
According to Modi, the most direct confrontation occurred in London in 2012. He claimed he was contacted at 3:30 am by a London-based fixer who pressured him into visiting a penthouse apartment belonging to a well-connected intermediary known as "Baba".
Upon his arrival, the intermediary allegedly walked out onto the terrace, dialled Dawood Ibrahim on a satellite phone, and placed the fugitive on speakerphone to confront Modi.
"I pissed in my pants, I'll tell you this. Without doubt. Right there and then," Lalit Modi told ANI, adding that he had British MI5 security stationed downstairs at the time.
"He simply says, 'Abhi se tumhara sab kaam khatam' (From now on, all your work is finished) and put down the phone."
Modi alleged that this encounter opened the floodgates to weekly calls from the intermediary, who demanded financial compensation and claimed the underworld wanted control of an IPL franchise. The syndicate reportedly argued that Modi owed them because his administrative decisions had cost them heavily in the underground betting markets (satta bazaar).
According to Modi, the underworld's hostility toward him peaked during the second season of the IPL in 2009. Due to a scheduling clash with the Indian general elections, Lalit Modi abruptly initiated the relocation of the entire tournament to South Africa.
This sudden relocation, he claims, threw the massive underground betting market into total disarray. Syndicate bookmakers had allegedly taken massive wagers that the tournament would be cancelled altogether.
"They accused me of moving IPL to South Africa when they thought it's not ever going to move because they ate the bets up," Modi stated.
"So they lost a lot of money apparently. They wanted me to make good that money. I didn't ask them to take the bet."
Modi claimed his strict anti-corruption stance during his tenure as IPL chairman (2008–2010) further agitated the mafia. He asserted that he actively blocked spot-fixing, banned suspicious individuals from stadiums, and rejected bribes worth hundreds of millions of dollars to look the other way.
The resulting friction allegedly triggered a series of co-ordinated hits against him across multiple continents. Modi cited a shootout outside his residence in Mumbai, an aborted hit in Johannesburg that was flagged by the South African government, and another plot intercepted at the Croatian border. He even alleged an attempted abduction of his son on Sloane Street in London.
When asked how he was eventually removed from the underworld's active hit list, Modi revealed that his exit from the sport was the ultimate bargaining chip. He claimed the syndicate eventually broadcast a live statement declaring that their issues with him had been resolved.
"I didn't [resolve it]," Modi clarified. "I just said I will retire from cricket. I gave my word. I will retire."
When explicitly asked if Dawood Ibrahim was the driving force behind his complete withdrawal from the cricket world, Modi responded: "It's one of the biggest reasons."
As the first chairman and commissioner of the IPL, Lalit Modi was widely credited with revolutionizing the global cricket economy by blending sport, Bollywood glamour, and heavy corporate backing into a highly lucrative T20 format.
However, his spectacular rise was cut short in April 2010. Immediately following the conclusion of the third IPL season, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) suspended Modi on various counts of financial irregularities, structural mismanagement, and bid-rigging.
By the time the BCCI instituted its internal disciplinary committee, Modi had left India for the United Kingdom, citing immense security threats to his life. In 2013, following an extensive internal inquiry, the BCCI handed him a lifetime ban from holding any cricket administration post in India.
While Indian enforcement agencies have spent more than a decade investigating him for alleged financial misconduct and passport violations, Modi has consistently maintained that his exit from India, and his subsequent retirement from the game, was fundamentally forced by the shadow of the Mumbai underworld.
Source: India Today