Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (17 page)

I finally came out
in September 2001 and Siva's family was blaming me for his arrest. I
didn't feel comfortable with their attitude so I thought it best not
to associate with my old friends anymore in order not to destroy yet
another person's life. I moved away from all of my childhood
acquaintances and chose to be a loner. I had been inside for almost
one year and, during that time, I had lost contact with all the
bookies. When I was released I realized that things had changed
dramatically: there was no more bookie's corner, Jalan Besar stadium
had been torn down to undergo renovation and there was no more street
betting; all of it was gone. Everyone was now using the internet to
gamble. I didn't know how the web worked so I was on a standstill and
couldn't find another occupation because of my criminal record;
everybody knew that I was involved in match-fixing.

I called Thana to be
updated on our common acquaintances and he told me that Pal was
broke. Thana also claimed that Pal had decided to use the floodlight
scam that I had proposed to him in 1995; he had allegedly paid
someone to switch off the lights during a September 2001 UEFA
Champions League match between Barcelona and Fenerbahce in Turkey.
Unfortunately for him, the stadium had a generator, the lights were
turned back on, and Pal ended up losing three million Ringgit on a
single bet. Thana had heard the story from his friend and bookie Yap,
who
claimed to have placed Pal's wager on the match.

Since he was
penniless, I didn't bother trying to contact Pal; I decided to stay
away from fellow match-fixers and attempted to find another way to
survive. I had no business and no job so, sometime in 2002, in order
to rake up some cash, I decided to file credit card applications on
behalf of some of my jobless friends. The scheme itself was pretty
simple: I would go to unemployed people and say: "Hey. Would you
like to make some money?"

These were not total
strangers; they were people who already knew me. I would coach them
on how to declare a 60 thousand dollar income to the Inland Revenue
Authority of Singapore. Once the application was filed, the IRAS
would send that person a tax return showing their income as 60
thousand dollars. I would then fill out a credit card application
form in their name and attach to it their income as stated by the
IRAS and their identification papers; then I sent everything out to
the bank. Once the card was approved, the bank would send it to my
home address. I needed to have the cards sent to my own home in order
to prevent the real applicants from cheating on me. I helped them get
credit and would then share it with them and use my cut for gambling.
The scheme seemed to work pretty well and, at one point, I had ten
successful applicants, until I teamed up with two friends of mine,
Chandar and Roy, and the whole thing blew up in my face.

We filed two
applications at the DBS bank in Singapore; one for a renovation loan
and another one for a credit card. Both applications were filed in
Chandar's name, who was well aware of the scheme. The application for
the renovation loan was prepared by Roy, who knew an employee at DBS
who
was ready to approve both requests. Chandar and I agreed
to share whatever money we were to receive from the bank. But when
the bank sent the credit card in Chandar's name to my home, another
joker called Eddy, a friend of mine who was also aware of the scam,
opened up the envelope, took the card and called the bank up.

"How much cash
can I withdraw?" the stupid fucker asked.

"Hello Mr.
Chandar", said a serviceable voice, "we need you to confirm
your date of birth first".

Eddy didn't have
Chandar's information at hand so he hung up the telephone and the
bank froze the card. When we tried to use it, the bank's cashier
said: "The bank wants to speak to you, Mr. Chandar".

Chandar was asked to
show up at the DBS bank card center on the following day and I chose
to accompany him. We spoke to the officer in charge, who was
persuaded that we had used a fake IRAS form to apply for the card. As
we left the bank with indignant looks on our faces, I tried to
reassure Chandar.

"Ours is an
original IRAS tax return form", I said to him, "there is no
way that we can be charged for any wrongdoing. Just you relax".

Chandar then
informed Roy about the issue with the credit card. The duo thought
that if there were problems with the card, there were bound to be
problems with the renovation loan as well, so Roy sought advice from
his contact within DBS.

"Get your
friend Chandar to file a police report", the DBS employee told
Roy. "If he lodges a complaint saying that his credit card
application was filed by someone else without his consent, then at
least the renovation loan will be approved".

Chandar followed the
man's advice and the complaint was lodged at the Bedok police
station.

"Wilson Raj
Perumal used my name without my knowledge", it read.

To make things
worse, Roy then went to the DBS bank with another friend of his and
filed a report against me there as well.

Roy and Chandar were
people that I had known for a lifetime. In 2001, Chandar had even
started a company, World Wide Events and Sports International, which
I used as a facade when I approached players. Both him and Roy were
fully aware of the consequences of a police report in Singapore and
had both been to prison before; they knew how fucked up it could be
but I guess that they just didn't care.

And trouble never
comes alone. That same week, my girlfriend got into a fight with her
sister and her sister's boyfriend used some vulgarities against her.
I don't want to mention the girl's name but I was deeply in love and
very attached to her back then. We had known each other for about a
year and had spent a lot of time together. Her sister's boyfriend was
a foreign student from India who was in Singapore to follow a marine
engineering course at the Polytechnic. I called him up.

"I want to
speak to you", I told him.

"What's the
problem?" he asked.

"I just want to
speak to you", I repeated.

We agreed to meet in
Queenstown. I waited for him with Danny and a few friends and the
asshole showed up with five or six boys behind him. We spoke but he
was too arrogant and soon there was nothing left to say, so I threw a
couple of punches in his face and fractured my knuckle. When they saw
what was happening, his boys came to his aid and one of my friends
began to swing his belt against them. Our discussion had turned into
a brawl. Eventually, somebody called the police and we were
separated. The investigation officer that showed up on the scene was
a former schoolmate of mine.

"What the
fuck", he reprimanded. "Exactly how thick do you want your
record to be? Come on, Wilson, do something with your life".

After the fight,
Danny, myself and two of the boys who were with us were charged with
illegal assembly.

On December 30
^th
,
2002, my brother, his friend Mega and I were driving across the
Causeway to Johor Bahru to have some food in Malaysia. At the ground
border, when the Singapore immigration officer saw my ID, he asked me
to step out of the car. Mega and my brother were allowed to leave
while I was sent directly to police lock-up. I did not know that I
was on the wanted list; for white collar crimes like credit card
fraud, the police are supposed to send you a letter requesting you to
turn yourself in but I had received nothing. I was locked up
overnight and then, on the following morning, I was taken before the
judge who charged me and remanded me for a week. After the seven days
were up, I was remanded for another seven days and then another seven
yet.

In police lock-up
they just give you a T-shirt and shorts, no underwear, and the
temperature is 16 degrees. You'll be freezing. I had a very difficult
time there. The police already had all the evidence against me but
they pretended like they were gathering additional information from
other banks about my credit card scams. I still remember the evil
look on the senior investigation officer's face. His name was Steven
and he was a real mother-fucker. The midget bastard was after me like
I had fucked his wife behind his back or something and was giving me
a really hard time. But three weeks is the maximum time that they can
keep an accused in police lock-up for investigations so, after the
third week, they were forced to bring me to court.

I sat in the back of
the prison van as it made its way to the Subordinate Court of
Singapore. Sitting beside me was a CPIB officer and another prisoner,
an Indian-Singaporean like myself, but of Sikh origin; his name was
Salwant Singh and he looked very worried.

"What's the
cell going to be like?" he inquired.

"I've been
there before, it's not so bad" I tried to reassure him.

As we neared the
court, the CPIB officer handed a slip of paper to me; it read that
the prosecution was asking for a 100 thousand dollar bail.

"100 thousand
dollars?" I exclaimed. "Why are they asking for that much
money?"

"Who asked you
to become the CPIB's enemy?" the officer remarked.

Fuck.

When in court, the
prosecutor took the stand and spelled out his request; the judge was
shocked.

"Why should I
set a 100 thousand dollar bail for this case?" he questioned.

The judge expected
the prosecutor to come up with a plausible explanation but none was
forthcoming so he halved the amount.

"Bail set at 50
thousand dollars", he said.

Not that it made a
difference; I was broke and had no money to pay the bail, so I was
sent back to the same old shit-hole, Queenstown remand prison. In
Singapore, if you cannot afford bail, you will be remanded until your
trial is over, then, if you are acquitted, you go back home; if you
are condemned, you are sent to another prison where you will serve
the remainder of your sentence. Remand prison is like a hub,
'interchange', they call it. Only high-profile inmates facing more
than 20 years of detention will be spared time in Queenstown and sent
directly to a maximum security penitentiary.

Once again, Salwant
Singh shared the police van ride back to Queenstown prison with me,
where we were assigned to the same cell together with two other
fellow Indians. In remand prison, wardens try not to mix the Chinese
with the Indians because they know that we don't blend together very
well. The moment we walked into the cell, Singh flushed the toilet
and drank the water as it slid down from the top of the bowl before
it reached the pool at its bottom.

"Fuck", I
thought, "no ordinary man will take water from there unless they
were already prone to doing so before; this guy must be a seasoned
criminal".

Singh smiled.

"Fuck, Singh",
I exclaimed, "you mother-fucker. You've been here before,
haven't you?"

Singh and I
exchanged information about our cases. He had been extradited from
India where he had sought refuge to escape forgery charges in
Singapore. Singh ran a telecommunication business that provided
services to foreigners, expats and all those needing to make
international telephone calls at cheaper rates. Only his rates were
not cheap; he overcharged everyone heavily. The charges against him
were so overwhelming that the court took half a day to read them out.
Singh then explained that he had undergone Corrective Training
before, which meant that he was a prison usual. Years later I learned
that, as a young man, Singh was an officer in the army, a national
serviceman, and that he was convicted for raping a young Chinese
clerk. Despite his criminal past, Singh was the most interesting
person in my cell.

When you are locked
up in remand, you are forbidden from improvising any kind of game to
pass the time. Only during yard time can you play carom billiards,
chess, draughts and other board games. If you're caught playing in
your cell, you will be charged for breaking prison rules and face
additional punishment. The superintendent can send you to solitary
confinement in a small hole and keep you there for days on end.
Despite the threat of the hole, prisoners need to kill time and there
are certain games that one can improvise with the few items available
inside. One such passtime is an Indian board game called Thayam. In
ancient times, Thayam was played by kings; reference to it can be
found in the
Bhagavad-Gita,
one of the sacred books of Hinduism. In this epic tale, the Pandavas
lose their wealth to the Kauravas during a game of Thayam. Thayam
can kill the whole day and Singh was very good at making
the dice for it. A normal die has six numbered faces while a Thayam
die only has four. It's shaped like a rectangular box and only the
four long faces are numbered. Flat, one, two, three. Prisoners often
use soap or dried bread to make Thayam dice. We were not allowed to
buy things while in remand but the prison did provide us with
toothpaste, a bar of soap and a piece of bread in the morning. Singh
would bring the bread outside during yard time, let it dry in the
sun, then he would carve it to make it into a die. I never really
bothered to learn the technique; I let the experts do the job. Singh
would then take the floor-mat, turn it upside down and draw the
diagram of the game on it. Flying chess, they call it. There are four
homes in the four cardinal directions: This is my home, this is your
home... You throw the dice, come out of your home and start moving.
My job is to chase you and cut you off. I throw the dice and, when
you're on my path, I swipe you off the board and you've got to start
all over again. The two losers that are left at the end of the game
have to drink a cup of water in one gulp. We have our cups, we have
our toilet water; drink up.