Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (24 page)

"Give me 25
thousand on the Over and 25 thousand on Gombak scoring three goals in
the second half".

Liaoning conceded
their third goal in a matter of seconds from my call, then came the
fourth and the fifth; the match ended with a 5-nil loss for the
Chinese team. I got up from my seat and left the stadium five minutes
before the end of the game to cash in on my wager. As I made my way
to the exit, I saw a fan that was perched nervously on the edge of
his seat, still engrossed with the match.

"My friend",
I said, "go home. There is no use watching this game: it's
fixed".

A few weeks later,
the Liaoning coach and players were picked up by the CPIB and
arrested for fixing the match against Gombak, among others. The team
manager had placed bets in China against his own team and had asked
his players to lose. He has since gone missing and is still wanted by
Singaporean authorities.

The
day after the Liaoning match, Zimbabwe landed in Vietnam for the
Agribank Cup and was waiting for instructions.
Since
Thana's boss had refused to finance my fix, I had parted ways with
Thana and Yap, so I called my friend Sivarajan to assist me.

"Get two
tickets to Vietnam", I told him. "We're traveling".

The mother-fucker
didn't check whether we were supposed to go to Ho Chi Minh City or
Hanoi. He bought two tickets to Ho Chi Minh City.

"Fuck. We're
supposed to go to Hanoi".

From Ho Chi Minh
City we took the first available flight to Hanoi. What I didn't know
was that, while I was doing business with Zimbabwe's executive
Rosemary, Thana's boss and his boys were secretly linking with
Jumbojumbo. When Jumbojumbo had come to Malaysia for the Merdeka Cup
he had figured that Thana's boss was the one with the money so he had
completely cut me out to do business directly with Thana and Yap. I
suspected that Jumbojumbo would double-cross me so, after landing in
Hanoi, I went directly to the hotel where the Zimbabwean delegation
was lodged. I called Rosemary and told her to meet me in front of
Jumbojumbo's room. I knocked on his door, he opened and I barged
inside the room.

"Hello
Jumbojumbo", I said. "Can I use your telephone for a
second?"

Before he could
reply, I snatched Jumbojumbo's phone from his hand and locked myself
in his bathroom. Rosemary was petrified. I looked through
Jumbojumbo's contacts and found Yap's number. Fuck. I extracted the
SIM card from Jumbojumbo's mobile phone and put it in my own phone,
then walked out of the bathroom and returned his mobile.

"Thank you
Jumbojumbo, see you".

I left the hotel
room and immediately sent an SMS to Yap using Jumbojumbo's SIM card.

"Hello David",
it was Yap's nickname. "This is JJ, how are you? How much will
you pay me per match?"

"Has Wilson Raj
tried to contact you?" replied Yap.

"No, he
hasn't".

With only an hour
left before kick off, the match still hadn't been put up for betting
on gambling websites. I left the Zimbabwean delegation's hotel and
rushed to the stadium, paid the ticket and walked in. As soon as I
came out onto the stands, I saw Thana and Yap seated in front of me;
they looked at me with an embarrassed smile pasted on their faces.

"You
mother-fuckers", I said. "What the fuck are you trying to
do? I asked you if your boss wanted to do business and you said 'no'.
I brought the team over on my own and now you want to do business
with them behind my back?"

They just stared at
me.

"Fuck", I
held up my mobile phone. "I've been sending those messages to
you, not Jumbojumbo".

Thana turned towards
Yap.

"I told you,
didn't I?" he said. "He is far more intelligent than you
are. You're a fool".

We all started
laughing. The game had kicked off but was not up for betting. There
was no money to be made so Zimbabwe went home empty-handed, as did
we.

After Zimbabwe's
match in Hanoi, I returned home to Singapore where I went to live
with my mother and life was normal again. I had money in my pockets
and could take my sweet time to look around for any new opportunities
that
might
arise.
I was not fixing any local matches
because I knew the risks; the CPIB had warned me and I had realized
how much easier and safer it was to manipulate games abroad.

In January 2008 the
Africa Cup of Nations was being played in Ghana so I decided to
travel there to see if some business could be done. African countries
all look the same; you'll see people walking around with things on
their heads trying to sell mineral water, mobile phone chargers or
other senseless odds and ends. I was slowly coming to admire these
people who worked hard under the hot sun to earn what to me was just
pocket money. I felt sorry for them, but what could I do? I never
understood why Africa hasn't made any progress over the years while
countries like Singapore developed at a tremendous rate in just a
couple of decades. Our leaders were probably as corrupt and
self-centered as the African ones but at least they showed a remnant
of sympathy for their people.

Thana and Yap were
also in Accra together with their friend Kelvin from Melaka, trying
to fix matches through the good offices of their contact Abukari. We
were not working together; they were there on their own and tried to
approach the coach of Benin, a German national called Reinhard
Fabisch, offering him a bribe. The attempt made the headlines on the
following day and they were forced to back away. I, in turn, was
lodged in Accra's Novotel Orchid Inn, where the Namibian team was
staying, and decided to approach them. I began chatting with a
Namibian official from their delegation and, through him, managed to
get close to some of their players, including their goalkeeper,
Athiel. I sat in front of Athiel and made my approach but he wasn't
responsive. Finally he looked at me and made a gesture indicating
that he could not hear; he was deaf. How the fuck am I supposed to
discuss match-fixing with someone who cannot hear me? I'm a
resourceful guy so I took pen and paper and began writing down the
score that I needed, in order to make him understand what I was
asking of him. Unfortunately, before I could crack the singular
language barrier between us, a Namibian footballer who played in the
German league tipped off the delegation officials as to what I was
trying to do. The officials lodged a complaint with the Confederation
of African Football (CAF) then advised me to leave the hotel
immediately. I bolted out of the door, sent a Ghanaian friend back in
to recover my belongings, then left Accra on that very day together
with Thana, Yap and their friend Kelvin; our efforts had been
fruitless.

After returning to
Singapore empty-handed, I read in the local papers that Malaysia was
set to host the Inter Continental Cup in May 2008. The Inter
Continental Cup was an eight-team invitational football tournament
staged in Kuala Lumpur featuring Under-23 national Olympic sides. It
was a warm-up contest before the Beijing Olympics that were going to
be held during that summer. Chile, Iraq and some other national teams
had already confirmed their participation. The tournament was
promoted by a private company called Octagon, run by a Singaporean
businessman. I was quite popular with the Malaysia FA
following the 200 thousand Ringgit sponsorship that I had provided
for them, so they introduced me to the Octagon management. With a few
months to go before the Inter Continental Cup, I sat around the table
with the company's representatives and made my offer.

"I am an agent
and I have very strong connections in Africa", I explained. "I
can bring two African national teams to Malaysia to play in your
tournament".

Octagon hired my
services to invite the two teams but only wanted top-notch, credible
African teams with a good FIFA ranking like Ghana and Nigeria; not
Zimbabwe or the likes. I assured them that I would fulfill their
request and they remitted 150 thousand dollars into my account to
cover all expenses and my personal fee. When the money hit my account
I could not resist the temptation and immediately gambled away 50
thousand dollars on Premier League matches. I was left without the
funds necessary to arrange the fix so I tried to find another
investor among my connections. I made a round of calls and soon the
news of my fund-raising campaign came to Mega's ears, who asked my
brother for advice. I don't usually talk to my brother because he is
a very difficult person to deal with but he was on good terms with
Mega at the time.

"There is a guy
I know", my brother told Mega. "Maybe he can find an
investor. You tell Wilson".

My brother's
connection was a man named Murugan. When I was introduced to him, he
claimed that we had already met in Singapore before my latest
detention; I, however, failed to recognize his face. Murugan said
that he used to be a runner for Bryan, Pal's right-hand man during
the Malaysia Cup days. Through Bryan, Murugan had met a
Chinese-Singaporean bookmaker called Tan Seet Eng, alias Dan Tan, and
had begun working for him.

I explained my plan
with the Inter Continental Cup to Murugan and he relayed the
information to his boss Dan Tan.

"We need money
for the airline tickets to fly the teams over", Murugan told Dan
Tan. "Then they can dance to our tune".

But Dan Tan was
broke at the time so he passed the business on to yet another guy
called Harry, a short, small Chinese who was a senior master agent
with discrete betting credibility at either IBCbet or SBObet.

IBCbet and SBObet
are the two main Asian gambling websites that are used by punters in
Singapore. Both companies are registered outside the Lion City, have
annual turnovers in the billions of dollars and operate on an
invitational basis. Before the advent of IBCbet and SBObet, the
biggest bookmaker in Singapore was a guy called Ah Chong. I was told
that Ah Chong had inherited his business from his father, who was
already a bookmaker before I was born. Ah Chong
was
the top bookie in Singapore but was forced to abandon his activity
after an ambush by the Criminal Investigation Department. During the
sweep, his entire family had been locked up for 48 hours and his dogs
had been killed. Ah Chong decided that enough was enough and handed
his business over to another gentleman who now runs one of the two
websites that I mentioned above. These companies are least bothered
if a match is fixed or not; they have their control system to
regulate the odds on a fixed match. When they see that an exorbitant
amount of money is being wagered on one particular game, they
immediately reduce the volume on that match and hang the odds in a
way that will make it difficult for the fixer to hit them any
further. Not many betting companies can hold a candle to the
credibility and volumes that these two companies offer on the Asian
market.

Dan Tan's friend
Harry was a senior master agent with one of these betting companies
so he had a high line of credit to offer.

"How much is
needed?" Harry asked Murugan. "And make sure the teams can
dance to my tune".

Murugan came back to
me and asked me what my price was.

"80 thousand
dollars", I told him, "that includes my share, tickets,
everything. 80 thousand per match, that's my quote".

Murugan called Harry
again then came back to me.

"Fine, 80
thousand", he said. "You just get us the result. Upon
completion of the job, I will pick up your money and bring it to you.
Harry will pay you, provided that the teams can listen and dance to
his tune".

"No problem,
they can listen and they can dance", I ensured.

Now
that I had a sponsor to cover the expenses, I needed to find two
top-notch African teams willing to participate in the Inter
Continental Cup. Nigeria was already qualified for the 2008 Beijing
Olympics and was busy looking for a training camp. A Nigerian agent
that I knew called Prince linked me up with a contact in the Nigeria
Football Federation (FF). I called Prince's contact and he confirmed
that the Nigerian Olympic squad was willing to participate
in the
competition. I didn't go to Abuja myself because Prince guaranteed
that he would sort out all the technicalities and put the team on an
airplane to Malaysia for me.

Nigeria was booked;
done. Now I needed a second team and my target was Ghana; I had been
there before and was sure that there was a good chance to get them on
board. I called the Ghana FA, then began a correspondence with them
via e-mail. At first, they told me that they too would be pleased to
participate, then they said that they needed time for the paperwork
and finally they stopped answering my e-mails altogether. I decided
to fly to Ghana and speak with them face to face. I booked an
appointment with the FA's General Secretary, then flew to Accra.
While in Accra, I walked into a popular sports caf
é
called the Bus Stop and ordered a Redbull. When the waiter handed me
the bill I was surprised to see that, since my last visit, the price
of items had changed dramatically; their local currency, the Cedi,
had been unilaterally locked to that of the US dollar. I marveled at
the mysteries of African economy, settled the bill, and took a taxi
to the headquarters of the Ghana FA. When I arrived, the FA's
General
Secretary was waiting for me in his office.