Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (40 page)

Match-fixing is also
open to new ideas and I, for one, often come up with good ones.
Sometime in 2009 I began being weary of approaching players and
having to rely solely on their commitment to obtain the results that
I wanted. Many footballers will agree to fix but, as the game kicks
off, will get carried away and stop listening to you; they neither
invest in a fixed match nor stand to lose a penny from a fix gone
wrong. However, if the correct result happens to come their way they
will, of course, bolt to you and demand their cut. That's why I began
targeting referees.

"Fuck", I
thought, "I can get in touch with a Football Association and
lend them my match officials. If I can place my referee and linesmen
on the pitch then I can easily ask them for three goals. Just three
individuals to bribe, that's it, end of story".

My
first target was, of course, Bahrain. In August 2009 I arranged a
mini three-nation triangular tournament between them, Kenya
and
Iran just to content the Bahrain FA.
The gambling websites were offering bets on the first match between
Bahrain and Kenya but I didn't have any Kenyan players on my payroll
at that stage so I just sat back and enjoyed the game. The plan was
to convince the Bahrain FA to use my referees in their national
team's matches.

The second game was
supposed to feature Kenya vs Iran but a sudden and inexplicable
dispute within the Kenya FA over appearance fees caused the match to
be canceled.

Then,
on August 31
^st
,
2009, Bahrain was to play against Iran in the third and final match
of the tournament.
I
sent Danny to Bahrain to run the show for me and arranged for match
officials from Eastern Europe to officiate the game. Our main
referee, a man from Bosnia Herzegovina, was at the helm of the
operations on the field. Murugan, who still cultivated his
connections in Bosnia dating back to the time when he had worked for
Bryan, helped me recruit the Bosnian referee for the match.

The volume offered
for games such as these was usually pretty small so I needed a
betting house to maximize my profits. Even though I had fallen out
with Ah Kang, I decided to call him up and convince him to place my
wagers on the match. Ah Kang agreed after some hesitation.

Bahrain defeated
Iran 4-2. Two penalties were awarded in the late stages of the match,
the second of which after nine minutes of injury time. The referee
did a perfect job and I paid him an extra ten thousand US dollars for
his intrepid commitment. After the game, I called Ah Kang to collect
my win but he came up with a bullshit story about not being able to
bet the amount that I had ordered.

"I could wager
only a portion of it", he claimed.

I suspected that Ah
Kang had probably decided to use the inside scoop on the match to
place his own money instead of mine. I am a seasoned campaigner in
this field and I can tell when I'm being lied to. He fucked me up and
I promised myself that this would really be the last time that I did
business with him.

A few days went by
and I had another international friendly match on my hands: Jordan vs
Malaysia in Amman; I flew a Kenyan referee over to officiate the
game. He had been introduced to me by my contact in the Kenya FA. The
usual procedure was that one FA would write to the other requesting
the use of one of their referees. We had our people on the inside who
were ready to propose and approve the match officials that we wanted;
everything was perfectly stage-managed but somehow the news of the
match leaked out.

"Wilson is
fixing this game", was the word in the market.

Every donkey in
Singapore tried to jump my wagon thinking that we were going for a
total of three goals; some were so confident that they placed their
wagers before the match had even kicked off. The odds went crazy:
three goals were paying a mere three dollars for every ten dollars
wagered. I decided to make a turnabout and go for Under. I called the
ref.

"Our plan is to
go Under", I told him. "Kill the fucking game. An accident
can happen: one goal is OK, but not two. No penalties whatsoever;
even if there are blatant ones, just play on. Tell the linesmen that
they are on extra duty: everything is off-side. Just raise the flag
every time the attackers are in line with the defenders".

The match ended 0-0
and I won my bet. On the next day, an official from the Jordanian FA
called me.

"Where did you
get that referee and his linesmen?" he inquired.

"What am I
supposed to do?" I answered. "They are all FIFA-accredited.
I asked the CAF for a referee and linesmen and this is who they came
up with. What can I do?"

It
was just a cover story, I hadn't asked CAF for the referee or the
linesmen; I had hand-picked them myself with the help of the Kenya
FA. When I needed a ref,
I
would fill out the forms for the match officials that I wanted to
use, print them out, then send them to the Football Association.
That's it. I had patiently built my network from one ref to the next.
After speaking with the Jordanian FA, I weighed the bullshit story
that I had fed them and reckoned that having someone within CAF could
actually make my life easier.

In
September 2009, I sent Danny to Ghana for their 2010 FIFA World Cup
qualifier against Sudan. He linked up with a Ghanaian by the name of
Sadat who helped him approach and speak to some of the Sudanese
players.

While
Danny was busy building a link with Sudan, I was on my way to Malawi
for another World Cup qualifier featuring the home side against
Guinea. I landed in Lilongwe, Malawi, on the eve of the match but
didn't have sufficient time to get enough players on my side so I
abandoned the idea of fixing it. While in Malawi, through the offices
of Rosemary, the Zimbabwe FA executive, I met with a man called Felix
in a local hotel. Felix was a football agent and Rosemary had
anticipated that he could be useful to our cause.

"I
organize international fixtures", I introduced myself. "I've
already invited Zimbabwe and Lesotho to play in Asia. If you know
people in the Malawi FA, we could bring foreign teams to Malawi to
play international friendly matches".

Felix
ran a legitimate business, representing a sportswear company or
something like that, but was also very knowledgeable about
match-fixing, so we exchanged views.

"Do
you know any referees from Malawi?" I asked.

"I'd
have to work on that", he replied. "Give me some time.
Right now I am busy working as a consultant for the Congolese club
Tout Puissant Mazembe (TPM)".

TPM
was playing in the CAF Champions League so I immediately considered
that something could be arranged with Les
Corbeaux, the Ravens, in the future
and expressed my hopes to Felix.

"I'll try to
speak to the TPM players if you want", he said, "but I
can't promise you anything right now".

Felix and I shook
hands and I was off to Pretoria, South Africa, from where, in less
than a week's time, I arranged for the Lesotho team to be invited for
an international friendly match in Malaysia. I met a Lesotho FA
official at a Pretoria train station where he provided me with a
team-list and copies of the passports of all the members of the
delegation that were going to travel. I then sent a letter to the
Lesotho FA confirming that tickets for 25 people had been booked.
This time around I didn't need a cover story, Lesotho already knew
what was required of them and that, even if I wasn't going to be
physically present, they were going to be well taken care of in
Malaysia.

With
the help of Rosemary, I then booked a meeting in Johannesburg with a
high-ranking executive from the Botswana FA named Peter. Rosemary had
sung my praises to him and he had expressed the desire to meet me.
Peter dropped in to my hotel and we sat down to discuss possible
business opportunities. He told me that Botswana had been invited to
China for an exhibition match to celebrate the 60
^th
anniversary of the founding of the
People's Republic at the end of September. Unfortunately, the
Botswana FA was broke and the Chinese weren't about to take on the
bills of their transfer.

"OK", I
said to Peter, "I'll finance the tickets for your delegation but
can you give me your cooperation?"

"What do you
mean?" he seemed perplexed.

"I need a coach
who will listen to me", I explained, "and who will
hand-pick players that are prepared to follow his instructions and
give me the result that I want in China".

"I'll do that",
said Peter, "but just bear in mind that I am not going to be
traveling with the delegation".

After striking a
deal with Botswana, the time had come to leave South Africa, so I
flew to London to visit some family friends; nothing related to
match-fixing.

Malaysia
and Lesotho were set to play on the afternoon of September 11
^th
,
2009, in Selangor, Malaysia. Thana and Anthony were running the show
for me there. I was still in London while my money for this match,
400 thousand dollars in cash, was in the trusted hands of Rajen
dra
Prasad, who
was tasked with
placing my bets in Singapore. I told Thana and Anthony to instruct
the Lesotho players to concede two goals during the first half of the
match. Since I didn't trust Ah Kang anymore, I was wagering through
another betting house owned by a Chinese guy called Ah Tong. Ah Tong
had worked for Ah Kang then had decided to set up his own business
and had invited me to place my bets with him.

The first half of
the game ended two-nil in favor of Malaysia but the betting volume
granted by Ah Tong was not up to my standards; I wanted to throw more
money on the match. As the second half was about to kick off,
Rajendra Prasad called me and suggested that we place our bets with
Ah Kang who, despite his recent fuck up, could probably provide us
with bigger volumes than Ah Tong.

"Why is
Rajendra pushing me to Ah Kang?" I wondered.

Rajendra Prasad knew
that I didn't want to do business with Ah Kang, but insisted
nonetheless.

"Why don't you
bet with Ah Kang?" he repeated. "What's the difference?"

"I told you",
I argued, "he cheated me with Bahrain vs Iran, why should I go
back to him?"

But Rajendra Prasad
was so persistent that, in the end, I gave in to his prodding.

"OK", I
thought, "never mind the past".

Then I asked on
impulse: "Check with Ah Kang if he can bet 400 thousand for me
and if he can give me a POW ticket".

A POW ticket
determines, before any betting actually takes place, the amount that
one is going to win or lose at the end of a match. When you buy a POW
ticket from a betting house like Ah Kang's, you agree that he will be
calling the shots; he will decide the final result of the game and at
which minute each of the goals has to be scored. Your only duty is to
provide him with the scoreline that he desires. In this specific
case, the POW ticket set my win at 320 thousand dollars and my loss
at 400 thousand. Ah Kang spelled out his request through Rajendra
Prasad.

"The
betting house wants three goals in the second half", Rajendra
Prasad relayed to me, "the goals have to be scored between the
80
^th
and the 90
^th
minute".

"Agreed",
I said, "tell him that I'll give him the result. But can he
confirm my POW?"

"Yes",
said Rajendra Prasad. "It's confirmed".

Ah Kang was in China
but had a runner in Singapore. The runner asked Rajendra Prasad to
meet him inside a second-hand mobile phone shop in the People's Park
Complex in Singapore's Chinatown. Despite my being just a phone call
away, Rajendra Prasad went to the shop carrying my 400 thousand in
cash, left the money with Ah Kang's runner as a deposit for my bet,
and took off. He didn't seek my consent first and he didn't inform
me, otherwise, I would have surely objected and told him to stay with
the money until the end of the match.

I knew that I wasn't
going to lose because I had nearly all of Lesotho's players on my
payroll. The team was under my full control and any result could have
been achieved upon request. As expected, the match ended 5-0 in favor
of Malaysia. The three second-half goals were all scored in the last
ten minutes of the match as requested by Ah Kang. I was already
savoring my win when I received a phone call from Rajendra Prasad.