Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (33 page)

It was the first
time that someone from mainland China came to us in Singapore with
such a proposal.

"There is no
senior master agent involved", he continued, "just my
betting house that can place your wagers on credit in one shot. You
want to play Roma vs Napoli? Pick up the telephone, tell me how much
your order is and I will do the job for you".

When
you have access to a senior master agent, you can place bets worth as
much as the credit that the agent has granted to your ID and
password. But 'betting houses' like Ah Kang's are different; they
don't have a name, they are illegal, and in order to use their
services you need to be properly introduced. They take your bet on a
fixed match and break it up onto several gambling sites or individual
accounts so that nobody can figure out who you are or how much you
are actually wagering.
The
bets are placed on unregulated websites in China, Malaysia,
Indonesia, the Philippines and Cambodia; any place where police
controls are not stringent will do.
This
way the odds are not altered and those monitoring the betting volumes
are deceived. It's a service dedicated especially to match-fixers.

"If you fix
matches, come to me", said Ah Kang. "If you are gambling,
please go elsewhere. I'm not interested".

Betting houses ride
on your bet. If you are betting on AS Roma for one million dollars,
the betting house will add two or three hundred thousand of its own
money on top of yours. We join hands to make money together: they
offer their services in exchange for free-of-charge information on
the fixed games. But if your fix is not right, you are fucking up
their business as well.

"You want to
use my service?" repeated Ah Kang. "Just call me. I will
let you use my service but if you lose one game, two games, three
games, then please settle your debt and don't call me anymore".

That's why we call
it a betting house. I'm a professional match-fixer; Ah Kang was a
professional in putting together several agents to place bets on a
number of different websites simultaneously; that was his profession.

Following the
meeting with Ah Kang, I asked Dan to get me a ticket to Syria to see
if business could be done there through the national team player that
we had both met in Beirut.

"OK, I'll give
you some expense money", Dan conceded. "Go to Syria and
work something out".

Dan
handed me six hundred US dollars and a ticket to Damascus.

"What
the fuck am I supposed to do with six hundred dollars?" I
protested. "It's not enough".

"Wilson",
said Dan, "I'm broke. If you manage to fix a single match, then
I'll send you some more money and we'll take it from there".

I
flew to Damascus and took a cab from the airport wondering how I was
going to convince the players to throw the match without any cash in
hand. I was surprised to see how poor Syria was and felt sorry for
its people. The living conditions were dire; the facades of the
buildings were made of bare bricks and gray cement with no plaster
shielding them. Everything looked untidy and it seemed as if the
Syrians were struggling just to find a roof for shelter. I checked
into a cheap downtown hotel called the Omar Khayam. People were very
friendly, the food was edible and everyone just sat around puffing
away at their hookahs. Anywhere that you turned, pictures of
President Bashar al Assad stared back at you, a trait common to all
Arabic countries: their leaders just love to litter the place with
their own despotic mugs.

I
met the Syrian national team player in his home. He lived in a small
apartment with no heating save for a small electric radiator. It was
wintertime and the temperature outside was well below freezing; we
stood near the radiator to keep from shivering uncontrollably. Fuck,
can you imagine? This was a national team player. What about the
other players? What about the ordinary people? I hate politicians and
governments who render their people's lives miserable.

"This Bashar Al
Assad is a real mother-fucker", I thought.

The rest of the
Syrian players soon joined us in the apartment and we all huddled up
near the radiator.

"Look here",
I told them, "I'll pay each of you ten thousand US dollars per
match".

They stared at me
cockeyed. I think that they mistook me for some character out of a
fairy tale and didn't take me seriously. Ten thousand dollars per
match? These guys were paid six to nine hundred dollars per month.
They didn't believe me and I had no money to show. Most of the
players only spoke Arabic and I am not even sure that they fully
understood my proposal. I was depending on the national team player
to translate and explain the number of goals that I required to the
others. I decided to try my luck nonetheless. Had Dan and I won our
bets, the players' money would have arrived on the following day.
Seven players, 70 thousand dollars per match, that was the deal. But
I think that they too tried their luck.

"If it happens,
we take the money", they probably thought. "If it doesn't,
too bad".

The first match was
far from auspicious; the players fucked up and Dan lost close to 300
thousand Singapore dollars.

"What the fuck
happened?" he howled over the telephone.

Every fixer has to
face the horrendous moment when a game goes wrong. The bosses simply
won't accept the idea that nothing can be done to change a disastrous
scoreline. Dan was hysterical; he kept me on the phone for close to
an hour seeking an explanation that I could not provide. After a
while I stopped listening to his ramblings.

"If everything
goes well", I thought above his shrieking voice, "you and
your syndicate take the lion's share and leave me with the
floor-sweepings. How sorry should I feel?"

Despite his
desperation, or because of it, Dan gave me the green light to go
ahead with another try. This time around I attempted to fix two
matches on the same day but both of them backfired badly. I guess
that the players had once again decided to play their normal game and
collect the money if the right result happened to come their way. We
were fucked. I was on the line with Dan as the last of the two games
was coming to an end.

"There is no
hope", I sighed in the receiver as the referee blew the final
whistle.

Dan shrieked in
pain.

"Arrgh...
Lose.... Aaargggh", was all I heard.

I hung up the
telephone as Dan gurgled in pain. After a few seconds he called
again; I answered hesitantly.

"I've lost one
million on these three games", bellowed Dan as his mood
gradually shifted from berserk to downright desperate.

I had no savings
left at the time so I hadn't gambled any money on the matches myself.
Had the right results materialized, I would have received my 30
thousand dollar cut to start my climb anew. Dan, on the other hand,
had gambled heavily on the matches and now owed a million dollars to
Ah Kang. He was literally crying into the receiver.

"Why did you do
this to me?" Dan bawled. "What will I do, Wilson? How am I
going to pay one million?"

I was speechless;
Dan's crying had caught me off guard and there was nothing that I
could do to help him.

"We lost",
I was powerless. "What am I supposed to do? Stop crying. You're
not a woman".

Dan called me again
and again so I shut my phone down. I couldn't stand to hear him wail
and sob. A loss is a loss. We should have sat down and thought about
how we were going to repay Ah Kang. Since my mobile was off, Dan
called Murugan and started crying to him too.

"Why the fuck
did you introduce Wilson Raj to me?" he whined.

In the background,
between Dan's inconsolable sobs, Murugan could make out the wailing
of Dan's wife in Hokkien.

"If you can't
pay, jump from the window and kill yourself! Kill yourself!" she
was shouting at him.

"I have to
die!" echoed Dan. "I have to die".

I returned to
Singapore without a penny in my pocket. My relationship with Dan was
strained to say the least and I knew that he was in deep trouble; he
was a dead man walking. Ah Kang was not going to take any further
bets from him, then the word would spread and Dan would not receive
any credit anywhere until he managed to settle his debt.

Fortunately for Dan,
Admir and his group came to his rescue. Dan had fixed the three
Syrian matches behind their backs and they were really pissed off but
they knew that he could prove to be a valuable ally.

"The fucker is
crying", Admir told the others.

"Why the fuck
are you crying like a baby?" he asked Dan. "You're a man.
Stand up like a man".

"My
wife told me: 'If you can't pay, jump from the window and kill
yourself'",
wept
Dan. "If I don't pay, I have to
die".

"If you have to
die", replied Admir, "then you have to die. What can we do?
Why did you do this business behind our backs? Why didn't you consult
us first?"

Eventually Admir and
the others agreed to come to Dan's rescue, lifted him from his puddle
of tears and put him back on track. The Europeans came up with a
certain amount of money, maybe 250 thousand dollars, which was
sufficient to start negotiating with Ah Kang. As long as you don't go
missing, people like Ah Kang will entertain you and wait for you to
come up with the money; if they see your commitment, they are
prepared to wait. They want their money back, what's left for them if
they kill you? Admir and the Europeans promised Ah Kang that they
would continue to use his services and he gave them more time to
settle Dan's debt. Dan was angry and initially said that he didn't
want to associate with me anymore but we still kept in touch.

During my last trip
to Beirut with Dan, I had discussed with Fadi the possibility of
doing business with the Lebanese clubs that had qualified for the AFC
Cup.

"Why
don't you do some ground-work", I had told him, knowing that the
tournament
usually
came with good betting volumes.
"See
if there is anyone willing to cooperate".

In
March 2009, as the AFC Cup was about to start, Fadi called me to say
that he and Dan had arranged to rig one of its matches in Oman
between the Omani club Al-Oruba SC and the Lebanese side Al-Mabarrah.
I had tried calling Fadi in the preceding month but had received no
answer; he had begun ignoring me as soon as he had met Dan.
Now he was informing me when
things were already settled.

"Three goals in
the last 15 minutes of the match", Fadi said.

I sat in front of my
computer, logged into my on-line gambling account and kept an eye on
the odds as the match progressed. Deep down I wanted Dan to win, pay
his debt to Ah Kang and make a comeback. Had I not failed miserably
in my judgment, Dan wouldn't be in this shitty situation. Trusting
the Syrian players was my call; I took my share of the blame for the
three failed matches and turned a blind eye to Dan's activities with
my agent Fadi.

Al-Oruba vs
Al-Mabarrah was a perfect job; the goals were conceded by the
Lebanese team in the last portion of the match as anticipated by
Fadi. I met Dino at the Marina Mandarin Hotel in Singapore later that
evening.

"I'm happy
you've won", I told him with a broad smile.

Dino didn't look me
in the eyes; he seemed embarrassed and bowed his head. He knew that
it was wrong to steal other people's business and run it behind their
backs. So that was it for Fadi, Lebanon, and my cut from those
matches. Dan continued to do business with the Lebanese without ever
giving me a cent. Then, after some time, Murugan called me.

"I'm going to
Beirut to hand over some money to Fadi for the players", he
said.

Dan never carried
cash on his person and, even if he was on the same flight as Murugan,
would make the latter carry the money in exchange for a few hundred
bucks.

"Why the fuck
are you traveling on such a long flight for a petty pay?" I
asked Murugan.

I felt that at this
point my arrears with Dan were settled and that I deserved to be
included in the business again, so I called Dan to confront him.