Panaji, Oct 16 The Goa Police's crime branch Thursday arrested a senior offshore casino official under the Immoral Trafficking Prevention (ITP) Act, officials said.

Speaking to reporters at the Crime Branch head quarters near Panaji, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Chandrakant Salgaonkar said that Sanjay Kaushik was arrested with a prostitute in an early morning raid at a city hotel.

Kaushik is the vice president of Mint casino, which runs an offshore casino operation in Goa.

"When we raided the Green Ridge hotel in Nagalim hills in Dona Paula, Kaushik was sleeping with a woman who was not his wife. On our enquiry, the girl told us she was from Manipur, while Kaushik who was being separately questioned, said she was from Nagaland, which raised our suspicion," Salgaonkar said.

While clarifying that the 23-year-old girl from Manipur had not filed a complaint with the police, the crime branch official said that Kaushik had been suo moto booked by the police under the ITP act.

Salgaonkar said he was not aware that Kaushik, a resident of Haryana, was vice president of an offshore casino operation. "We only know that he is an employee in a casino," he said.

The raid comes on the heels of yet another raid on the Mint-operated offshore casino vessel by the state administration and the Crime Branch a week ago, for running gambling operations, despite expiry of its trade licence and non payment of annual licence fees to the tune of Rs. 5 crore (Rs. 50 million). (IANS)