Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (16 page)

Judge
Kaur was the same magistrate who had previously convicted Ah Seng for
the three matches in question so, on the day of the final
submissions, she dangled the charges against me in front of the
prosecutor's nose and asked: "Can you please enlighten me as to
why you are charging this man with the same charges regarding the
very same players and matches for which another man has already been
convicted? I was the presiding judge in that trial".

Throughout
the entire proceeding, Judge Kaur had never lost her cool, but now
she was furious.

"As
a court officer", she continued, "I expect honesty from
you, Mr. Prosecutor".

Judge
Kaur didn't give the prosecutor a chance to reply; she was all over
him. The judges knew that charging and acquitting an accused would
have undermined the credibility of the police; in Singapore, the
burden of providing evidence of one's innocence rests solely on the
defendant, but certain lines weren't to be overstepped.

"Don't
be dishonest", she thundered. "You don't have to obtain a
conviction at all costs".

Judge
Kaur finally acquitted me on all charges for the three Balestier
matches. Everyone present in the courthouse knew that I was involved
in match-fixing, only the charges were wrong. How can two people fix
the same match?

Unfortunately, the
charges of common intention for introducing the referee Ramasamy to
Pal stood. I had known Ramasamy for a very long time, just like I had
known Manap, who had deliberately lied under oath. I knew that
neither would have testified against me in normal circumstances. Both
Ramasamy and Manap had completed their prison time when I was
arrested, but the prosecution forced them to take the stand anyways;
in Singapore they can twist your arm if they want to. In Ramasamy's
case, they had threatened to drag his sister to court for receiving
the bribe money from Mike. Finally, Pal also took the stand and
testified against me to save his own ass from going to prison; I did
not expect anything less from him. I was found guilty and sentenced:
16 months for introducing Ramasamy to Pal and an additional ten
months for attempting to escape police custody. In total, 26 months,
of which I served two-thirds: 18 months.

I came out in March
2000 and things were looking especially grim. I had no money in my
pockets and immediately went back to the same old
ritual
;
I started doing business with a friend of mine, Siva, a golf teacher.
Siva had earned a degree in golf management in San Diego, California;
so long as you speak a little English and pay your tuition fee, you
can easily come back from San Diego with a golfing degree. But Siva
didn't have the patience to stand on the fairway for hours at a time
under the hot sun and teach; he was too lazy and just wanted fast
money so he became a match-fixer and was actively involved in
football betting. Siva had made good money during the Malaysia Cup
and that is how he had paid his golfing degree in the United States.
When I met him after my release, Siva was in business with Lutz, a
German goalkeeper who played for Geylang United, and with Mirko, an
Australian player for Sembawang Rangers.

Sometime in July
2000, Siva and I were waiting for Lutz and Mirko to come home after
training when we saw Ivica Raguz walk past us. Raguz was a Croatian
footballer who played in Woodlands Wellington FC, a local Singapore
club. He was the best player in his team; a very good offensive
midfielder. Woodlands Wellington was set to play against Geylang
United, Lutz's team, within days. Siva wanted Geylang to win the
fixture, but Lutz was just a goalkeeper so he couldn't do much to
help his team score. Ivica Raguz, on the other hand, was Woodlands'
main man, their nucleus. Removing Ivica from the Woodlands lineup
would have been like taking Andrea Pirlo out of Juventus FC; he was
their backbone, their engine room; you take him out and the team
cannot function.

As we watched Ivica
walk past us, Siva and I explored the scope of possible solutions to
our dilemma.

"If we knock
this guy's leg", I said, "fuck, his team is going to lose".

"Why don't we
get somebody to do that and place a wager on Geylang to win",
said Siva. "30 thousand or so".

"Sounds like a
plan", I commented.

Honestly, I think
that this was one of the dumbest things that I ever did in my entire
life. Siva and I hired a few Bangladeshi guys to do the job; I was
supposed to oversee them while Siva was tasked with placing the bets.
And he did: 30 thousand Singapore dollars on Geylang United to win
against Woodlands Wellington. The wager was placed and now the job
needed to be carried out, but the Bangladeshi guys pulled out at the
last minute.

"No, we're not
doing this", they said. "The guy is too huge".

I was left with no
choice but to do it myself.

Quite a few people
play grass hockey in Singapore. I got a hockey stick, a hockey bag, a
jockey cap and shades; just like a hockey player, so that people
would not wonder: "What the fuck is this guy carrying a hockey
stick for?"

Once I got to
Woodlands Wellington's training ground I placed the hockey stick
safely in a corner and began jogging on the track surrounding the
pitch towards the Woodlands bench. The manager of Woodlands
Wellington was an Indian like myself so I sat down next to him and
tried to start a conversation; he was going to be my alibi later on.
From the corner of my eye I saw Ivica Raguz and his teammate Max
Nicholson leaving the stadium.

"OK, I have to
go now", I told the team manager. "See you around".

I gave Ivica and Max
about a 100-meter head start then picked up my hockey stick and
followed them to the train station. I climbed in the train two
compartments behind theirs and made my way towards them.

"Fuck, three
guys", the two players were not alone. "Ivica, Max and
their coach".

After climbing out
of the train, Ivica and his companions headed towards the Orchid Park
Condominium where he lived. Then, once in Yishun, the Woodlands coach
took a different turn; now it was just the two of them, Ivica and
Max. I was by myself but had a hockey stick with me, which was as
good as five men. The time was almost right and, as I followed them
more closely down the street, I questioned my resolve.

"Am I really
going to do it or not?"

Siva had already
placed our bet and I had given him my word that I was going to do it,
so I swept all remaining doubts from my mind and closed the distance
between the two players and myself. Ivica was on my left and Max was
on my right; my right hand is the more powerful of the two so I moved
a bit to the side and swung from my right, landing my blow right
behind Ivica's knee. He collapsed to the ground, looked up and began
screaming.

"Fuck!" he
wailed.

Max turned around to
see what had hit Ivica. When he saw a dark figure with a hockey stick
in hand he too began shrieking in fear.

"What the
fuck?" he yelled and took off running without helping his
friend.

When Ivica saw Max
run he jumped to his feet and began sprinting like a bullet train in
the opposite direction.

"Fuck", I
realized, "this guy can still run. He's going to play tomorrow".

I began chasing
Ivica with the hockey stick in my hand but he was too fast, like a
100-meter dasher. Max was surely going to call the police so I could
not be chasing Ivica in broad daylight for too long; I stopped
running and made a U-turn. I noticed a guy cycling past the scene who
was staring at me so I pulled my cap down over my eyes. Once he had
cruised by, I threw the hockey stick in a nearby drain, flagged a
taxi and went home. Then I called Siva.

"I did it",
I told him, "Max was also there. He took off. He shouted 'What
the fuck' and took off".

I hung up the
telephone, changed my clothes and went to play football in Ang Mo Kio
with my friends. On the following day, Ivica didn't play and Siva won
his bet. I was supposed to get part of the profits, but I never had a
chance to collect my share. In the end, I didn't earn one dollar from
that match.

On the following
day, the news of my assault on Ivica Raguz
was
all over the local papers but neither Ivica nor Max
could identify the assailant.

Then, a few days
later, as Siva, my schoolmate Rajah and I were sitting below Siva's
block, suddenly, there was a massive commotion. What the fuck. Thirty
or forty CPIB officers in plain clothes appeared out of nowhere
shouting: "Na bei chee-bye! Don't run!"

Pum! They ambushed
us like a bunch of ruffians.

As we were being
arrested, Lutz and Mirko were picked up at their homes for
match-fixing as well. We were all taken to CPIB headquarters and
locked up in separate rooms so that we would not interact. At first,
the CPIB couldn't find any reliable witness against me. During the
identification parade, only Max Nicholson pointed his finger at me as
the assailant but he was too shaky to be convincing; he had probably
obtained some details on my appearance from the team manager that I
had spoken to at the Woodlands Wellington training ground before the
attack. Ivica couldn't identify the attacker among the people lined
up in the parade and the cyclist that had witnessed the scene simply
picked the wrong guy.

My call to Siva
after the attack was the only way that the CPIB could get to me. I
suspect that Siva's telephone conversations were being recorded
because, after the arrests, he immediately chose to turn prosecution
witness against Mirko and Lutz and, had I contested the case, would
have probably done the same with me. Either way, I was released on
bail and my passport was impounded once again.

Immediately, I tried
to leave the country with a friend's passport but was arrested at the
border with Malaysia by the Singaporean immigration. I was remanded
and charged in court on the following day. Contesting the assault
charges could have proved counterproductive since there were other,
more serious charges, that could have surfaced had I chosen to stand
trial; I decided to plead guilty and take the heat. The presiding
judge slapped me with the maximum punishment for assault: one year
behind bars.

While serving my
sentence I became a prison helper, which meant that I served food and
carried out other chores, so I had the privilege
of
moving
around a little more than the other
inmates. One day I met Lutz, the German footballer, who was working
in the prison laundry.

"How are you
Lutz?" I asked him. "Everything OK?"

Lutz told me that he
and Mirko had fought their case in court but had lost. They had been
both convicted and Lutz had grown really paranoid about the prison's
conditions; he could not believe that you had to take water from the
toilet bowl to wash your face.

"What the fuck
is this?" cried Lutz, as he saw his prison-mates drinking from
the bowl.

For Lutz and Mirko,
prison in Singapore was a total culture shock. Lutz told me that he
had filed a formal complaint with the German embassy and that the
ambassador had in turn complained with the Prison Department of
Singapore.

"What the
fuck", said the Germans. "There is no water in your cells?"

The German embassy
lodged its complaint and everybody received extra water for some
time, but it was not enough for Lutz.

"Why is it that
I'm in prison", he asked the embassy, "while the guy who
gave me the money is not?"

Siva had been let
off the hook because he had turned prosecution witness but the German
embassy was pressing the Singapore government to charge Siva with
match-fixing as well.

"What kind of
judicial system do you have?" complained the Germans. "How
come my citizen is in prison while yours is outside?"

The whole story did
not reflect well on the Singaporean judicial system; in the end there
was some hugging and kissing and Siva was told: "Look. We have
to charge you. Come and serve one month; a one-month holiday".

Siva was finally
locked up and ended up working in the prison laundry with Lutz.

Lutz was not the
only one who was unhappy with the prison conditions but, had he not
been German, he would have paid dearly for voicing his complaints.

Prison in Singapore
had not changed much since my last detention. Sometime in 1999 I
watched an inmate from my block seek medical help for three
consecutive days and nights. He was given painkillers and finally
passed away from heart failure after three long days of agony. Then,
in 2001, a young prisoner was strangled to death by an older inmate.
Usually, no young detainee should be placed in a cell with an older
one; it was standard procedure which the prison ignored. All of these
fuck-ups were covered up by the government to preserve the
unblemished image of the prison department.