Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (23 page)

In September 2007,
China was hosting the FIFA Women's World Cup so I
traveled there with Thana and Yap. Once again, we targeted the
African teams. We approached the girls from the Nigeria women's
national team. Initially we met two of them, I invited them out for a
drink and we started chatting.

"I'm a football
agent", I told them. "Would you be interested in playing in
Europe? Do you have a laptop? A mobile phone? Would you like me to
buy you one?"

It was a gamble but
they accepted and took my presents. You see, once a player takes your
gifts, you know that they aren't going to report you, then, if they
don't cooperate, the laptops or mobile phones that you gave to them
amount to a mere business loss; they are gone, but you are safe. I
asked the Nigerian girls whether they could approach their goalkeeper
and ask her to join our ranks. They tried, but the goalkeeper
refused: she was clean. One of the girls came back to me and briefed
me.

"Our goalkeeper
says that you've come up to her before with the same proposal during
the 2004 Olympics in Greece", she said.

"Fuck", I
replied. "I've never met any of you before".

I was in prison
during the Olympics in Greece but an Indian guy in Singapore had once
told me that Pal's group had fixed the Athens games.

"Fuck Pal",
the guy had added. "He took all the money and didn't give me a
penny. He just disappeared".

Greedy fucker. The
Nigerian goalkeeper must have met one of Pal's boys in Greece and
thought I was him. Anyways, we bought four laptops and four mobile
phones, which the two Nigerian girls shared with two of their
teammates who also joined our side. Later, all four girls came to see
us.

"You have a
match against North Korea coming up", I said to them. "Are
you willing to lose?"

The Nigerian girls
accepted so we left 60 thousand dollars in cash with them as a
deposit. I was a little pissed off at Thana and Yap at that point
because they were being paid by their boss but were leaving all the
work to me.

On the following
day, Nigeria was set to play against North Korea, which was giving
1.5. Thana and Yap asked the girls to lose the match by three goals
so that they could clear the handicap and win additional money on
Over 2.5. The game kicked off and, by the end of the first half,
Nigeria was down by two goals. The Nigerian girls never managed to
concede the third goal because, being two goals ahead, the North
Koreans were just passing the ball around, waiting for the final
whistle to blow. At the end of the match, the result was left
unchanged: 2-0 in favor of North Korea; one goal short of what we had
asked the girls.

"You have to
take the money back", ordered Thana. "The girls did not
deliver".

"Fuck", I
said to him, "you won the handicap on the first half and on the
final result; the only bet you lost is on the total number of goals
scored. The girls deserve to get something".

"This is not a
good deal", I thought to myself. "I'll be losing my cut
from this match as well if the players don't get paid. I've got to
come up with something".

On the next day,
Thana was sent to another city on another business while Yap and I
remained in the hotel with the Nigerian team and were tasked with
retrieving the cash. I left Yap in the room and went downstairs in
the hotel's hall where, randomly, I approached a chubby Nigerian who
was with the delegation.

"Would you like
to make five hundred dollars?" I asked him.

"Sure", he
volunteered.

"OK", I
explained, "all you have to do is come to my room when I call
you, knock on my door and, when I open it, say: 'I know what you guys
are doing. If you are still here in five minutes I'm calling the
police'. That's all. Do you understand? Here, take five hundred
dollars and go".

I returned to my
room and called the Nigerian guy on his telephone: knock, knock. I
opened the door.

"Yes?"

"I know what
you guys are doing", the chubby Nigerian guy was a classy actor.
"If you are still here five minutes from now, I'm calling the
police".

"Fuck", I
turned to Yap. "Pack our things. We run".

Yap was so scared
that, within seconds, he disappeared from the scene and ran out of
the hotel. He was literally terror-stricken; he jumped over a wall
behind the hotel's compound and accidentally landed in the courtyard
of a police station.

"Why are you
running?" asked the policemen.

"Thieves were
chasing me", stuttered Yap.

As for me, I
pretended to leave then stopped, walked back to the hotel and knocked
on the Nigerian girls' door.

"You can keep
40 thousand. Just give me back 20 thousand", I told them. "It's
only fair, since you didn't give me the three goals that I wanted".

I pocketed the 20
thousand dollars then, on the following day, met Thana and Yap in
another city.

"Thank God we
didn't get caught", sighed Yap in relief.

That night I flew
back to Singapore and, as soon as I got home, began looking at the
coming fixtures of the Women's World Cup. My eyes landed on Ghana vs
Norway. Ghana was already out of contention and I knew that Norway
could beat them so they made for the perfect losing side. I looked up
the names of the Ghanaian team members on the internet then called
their FA.

"I'm a football
agent", I said. "I happen to be in China and I want to meet
your head of delegation for future reference. Where is your team
staying?"

"They're lodged
in this hotel".

The FAs would
usually facilitate an agent's task by providing him with all the
details that he needed. Unless, of course, you were in the USA or in
the UK, where they don't give out that kind of information for
security reasons. I looked up the hotel, called the reception and
asked them to put one of the senior players on the telephone.

"I'm a football
agent", I said. "I'm looking for players and this and
that"; same scheme.

"Look here",
I told her, "you are out of the competition already and you've
got a useless game coming up. You're going to lose against Norway
anyways and you'll just go home penniless. Why not make 75 thousand
dollars on this match?"

"We can discuss
that", answered the girl.

"How many girls
do you have on the team that can be convinced?" I asked.

"Maybe four".

"Why don't you
go and get one or two more", I wanted to make sure. "Just
get as many as possible".

"OK", she
said. "I will do that".

I got a friend of
mine called Sivarajan to book two tickets to Shanghai and we flew
together back to China. I had known Sivarajan for a good 15 years and
had decided to use him in my business.
From
Shanghai, we traveled to the city of Hangzhou, where the Ghana
delegation was staying. We booked a room in their same hotel and
started walking around the premises, trying to identify the girl that
I had spoken to on the telephone. As I chatted with Sivarajan in the
hotel's hall, I sensed that there was something sinister going on.
The ambiance was not right. Some of the people there were looking at
me like: "Who is this guy?"

When Sivarajan and I
went up to our room, two Chinese men in plain clothes followed us
upstairs and, as soon as we were inside, proceeded to knock on our
door. I opened it.

"Can we see
your passports?" they asked. "What are you doing in China?"

They were undercover
police officers.

"One of the
girls must have spilled the beans", I thought.

"I'm a football
agent", I said as I handed them my World Wide Events and Sports
International business card. "I'm here to watch football. The
Women's World Cup, you know".

"I don't think
that you are here for that purpose", one of the officers stated.
"I want you to tell me the truth
about
why you are here".

"I am here to
watch the games and to evaluate potential candidates for transfers
into the clubs that I represent", I said. "But if you know
something different, then why don't you tell me what other reason I'm
supposedly here for".

"No", said
the policeman with a grimace, "you tell me".

"I'm here to
watch football", I repeated. "This is what I know. If you
know more than I do, then you tell me".

The conversation was
not going anywhere.

"Look, we know
why you're here", the Chinese policeman finally said. "Now
you pack your things and leave this place immediately. Where did you
come from?"

"Shanghai".

"You go back to
Shanghai now. Then we want you out of the country".

The officers took
pictures of our faces and of our passports then, as we were followed
closely by more undercover policemen, we boarded a train from
Hangzhou to Shanghai. From Shanghai, we hopped on the first available
flight to Singapore and were finally out of China and able to
breathe. Ghana lost their match against Norway 7-2 and I thought to
myself: "These stupid girls blew 75 thousand dollars away just
like that".

A few months went by
and I just couldn't keep my mouth shut with Thana.

"Remember the
Nigeria game and the guy that came to knock on our door saying that
he would call the police?" I laughed. "That was a hoax. But
make sure this stays between you and me. Don't tell Yap".

Thana must have
eventually told Yap, because two years later I received a call from
him.

"Was that a
hoax?" he asked.

"Fuck", I
said. "Of course not, man".

After the end of the
Women's World Cup in China I read news that the Agribank Cup, an
Under-23 tournament, was going to take place in November in Vietnam
and I thought that Zimbabwe would be the perfect team to play in the
competition. By then I had realized that it was much easier to deal
with Africans than with anybody else: when the money is on the table,
they become different people; they listen to you.

The Zimbabwean
players had returned from the 2007 Merdeka Cup in Malaysia with new
TVs, laptops, clothes and all, attracting the attention of one of the
Zimbabwe FA's high-ranking executives called Rosemary. She
immediately jumped on the bandwagon.

"This is
harvesting time", Rosemary thought; she fetched my contact from
one of her colleagues and called me to do business.

"There is the
Agribank Cup in Vietnam in November", I informed her. "But
first I need to get your team invited by the Vietnamese FA. We don't
know if there will be any betting on these games at this point in
time; we just have to wait and see. If there is betting, then
business is on".

"OK", said
Rosemary.

I called my contact
in the Malaysia FA and he provided me with the e-mail address of a
friend of his in the Vietnam FA. We started corresponding.

"Zimbabwe would
like to participate in your tournament", I wrote. "We'll
pay for the airfare".

Then I called Thana
and told him to ask his boss for 11 thousand dollars to buy
Zimbabwe's airline tickets to Vietnam, but Thana declined.

"The boss
doesn't want to pay for the airfare", he said.

Fuck. Where was I
going to find the money to bring Zimbabwe to Vietnam? I called the
Vietnamese FA and came up with an excuse.

"Unfortunately
FIFA has given Zimbabwe specific instructions not to accept any
favors or tickets from a third party", I explained. "Money
can only move from one Football Association to the other. Zimbabwe
will not come unless you pay for their airfare".

Now the organizers
of the event were faced with their own dilemma: they had already
received funding from the Agribank Cup sponsors and had to come up
with enough teams to play in the tournament. In the end, they gave up
and decided to pay for the airfare themselves.

On November 1
^st
,
2007, before departing for Vietnam, I happened to walk near the Jalan
Besar stadium. Since my release from prison I had stopped watching
local football matches that I wasn't fixing. In fact, nowadays I
rarely watch any football unless it involves two top-class teams. But
at that time I had nothing much to do and was in contact with a
friend who could place quick bets over the telephone so I decided to
step inside the newly rebuilt Jalan Besar to take a peek. I walked in
on a match between Gombak United and Liaoning Guangyuan, a Chinese
team that participated in the S-League. The two teams seemed to be
roughly at the same level and I was in
two-minds
on which team to place my wager. At half-time, Gombak
was leading by two goals. As the second half began, I noticed that
the Liaoning right-back and left-back defenders were totally out of
position. The whole team looked like a herd of crazed animals running
aimlessly on the pitch. Immediately, I called my friend up.