Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer (6 page)

Gamblers don't have
the mindset to save, we just gamble everything away. It's like an
addiction and, when you run out of money, you come up with all sorts
of bullshit stories on potential business deals with friends or loan
sharks just to borrow enough cash for your next bet; nobody will lend
you money if they know that you're a punter. I fixed so many matches
in those years
that if I were not a
gambler, I would be a multimillionaire today. But I'm not; I'm broke.
I've never had a family of my own so it was just like:
gamble
right hand, you win, then the money moves on to your
left hand. And then it just moves on.

Gambling on football
was illegal in Singapore during the 80's and the 90's; only the Toto
and another lottery known as the 4D were allowed. Singapore Pools,
the country's sole legal lottery operator run by the State, began
offering odds on football only in 1999 to focus interest on the local
football league. There were no casinos; we had to travel to the
Genting Highlands Casino in Malaysia, 400 km away from Singapore, in
order to sit at a blackjack table. For those of us who gambled on
football in those days, it was all about the Malaysia Cup:
a
tournament between 14 Malaysian states and two guest
nations; and it was all illegal gambling, of course.

From 1921 to 1994,
Singapore assembled a special national team called the Singapore
Lions to participate in the Malaysia Cup as a guest. Singapore would
field their best available lineup, including three foreign players -
a leeway granted by the Football Association of Malaysia to its
guests - but still struggled because the standard of the Malaysian
teams was pretty high. Brunei was another guest of the Malaysia Cup
and was also allowed to field three foreign players. This is history;
we have a long history with Malaysia and the Malaysia Cup was a huge
sporting event with an average crowd attendance of at least 55
thousand people per match.

When I started
watching the Malaysia Cup games, I became even more hooked
on
gambling and my bets became bigger and bigger. By then I
was already deep in the betting circle and the Chinese bookies that I
had met at the Jalan Besar stadium had introduced me to people with
whom I could punt very heavy wagers. These were bookies that threw
pro-bets and they were structured in a rigid hierarchy: I throw my
bet to one agent, that agent throws to another and so forth. In those
days I didn't know who was in the upper echelon; I just threw my bet.
All I wanted was to collect my win. We didn't use computers back
then; bets were usually placed over the telephone.

"OK", you
would say, "I want to place five thousand on this game".

Then the bookie
would inform you
about
the odds offered. If you wanted to take the favorite
team, you would have to counter the bookie until you reached a
satisfactory deal with him. You didn't need to show up with the money
in hand; everything was based on credit.

"Five thousand
is no problem", the bookie would say, "I can entertain you
with that much money for your credibility".

Credibility was the
only currency; it's the way the Asian betting system works.
Credibility has no value in Europe, where even the Pope would be
asked to
present
himself
with his money upfront, instead,
Asian betting is based on trust. If I give you one thousand dollars
worth of credit it means that I trust you for one thousand dollars.
If your credibility is worth one thousand and you want to bet 50
thousand dollars, then you would have
to
show the agent the cash. The same is true
of the payments:
wins
and losses have to be settled on the following day; any
delay without a plausible explanation undermines your credibility and
your credit.

Match-fixing was
rife in the Malaysia Cup ever since I was a young punter. I knew when
a match was being fixed based on the hearsay, the market-talk, but if
your name were Tom, Dick or Harry, sitting in your home watching the
match on TV, then you wouldn't know. When you're into the betting
circle, you can smell when there's something fishy going on and
sometimes a good Samaritan will walk up to you and give you a tip. I
remember the 1994 Asian Games final between China and Uzbekistan. On
the eve of the match, when I called my bookmaker to place my bet,
China was the favorite.

"What are the
odds for this game?" I inquired.

"China, I give
you half-ball", he replied.

"I want to take
China and counter".

"Wilson",
he said, "don't place your bet yet; wait for my instructions. If
there is something good coming up, I will let you know. Just wait for
my call, I'll get back to you in an hour or so".

"OK, fine".
I waited.

The bookie called me
back an hour later.

"Don't take
China", he whispered, "my advice is don't take China, but
it's your money and you can go against me if you want".

"All right",
I said, "I'll do as you say. Give me Uzbekistan: 50 thousand
dollars".

On the next morning
I called another bookie; I wanted to wager some more money before the
match kicked off.

"What are the
odds?" I asked.

"Uzbekistan,
give you one-ball", he said.

China had ceased to
be the favorite overnight; the tables had been turned and it was a
clear indication that the match was fixed.

"I'll take
Uzbekistan", I rubbed my hands, "30 thousand dollars".

As expected, the
Uzbeks went on to win the final 4-2.

Back then I was a
small, very tiny fish; like a guppy in the sea. And there were the
big
fish
:
Indonesian bosses, Chinese bookies, local Malaysian fixers,
Singaporeans and so on. There was a Chinese-Indonesian boss called
Uncle who controlled all the local boys in Singapore, including some
of the players from the national team. Uncle was an old-school
figure; I don't even know if he's still alive. He had really
influential footballers on his payroll and was very powerful in the
entire Asian region. In those days, fixers would often call
themselves 'Uncle', but the Uncle I'm talking about would ring a bell
in the memory
of
any corrupt player of the time. I never
found out his real name, although I did hear someone call him Frankie
on one occasion. Uncle never intimidated players to obtain the
desired scoreline, instead, he took good care of them and won their
loyalty and trust by being generous with money. He would personally
wait for the players in their hotel lobby, take the lift together
with them and stuff rolls of money in their pockets.

"Just keep this
for your coffee", he would say with a gentle smile.

In those years,
Singapore was horrible when it came to the welfare of sportsmen:
the
moment they were injured, they were given a golden
handshake and a courteous goodbye. Uncle's methods were therefore
very effective among local footballers. Other fixers brandished guns
when things went wrong but Uncle never did; he never needed to.

Women were another
way to persuade players to throw a match. In 1995, Qatar held the
FIFA World Youth Championship and an Asian syndicate slipped a group
of Thai girls into the hotel's swimming pool to get close to the
players. I recall that someone got arrested following a complaint but
Qatar did not pursue the matter any further. Players, girls and
match-fixers alike were just deported home because no one knew
what
charges to bring against them.

Uncle and the other
big fish had a firm grip on the Malaysia Cup. I remember a match
between the Singapore Lions and Johor FC that Uncle fixed. The
handicap was one goal for Johor, meaning that Singapore either had to
draw or lose by one goal for Uncle to claim his win. In the second
half, Singapore was awarded a penalty, but Uncle had bribed one of
the players.

"You guys
cannot score", he had instructed. "The score has to remain
0-0 or else you're not going to get paid".

Uncle's player
snatched the ball from his teammate who was about to kick the
penalty, blasted it
into
the stands, turned around and walked away like nobody's
business with 60 thousand people looking on. The spectators must have
thought that he genuinely missed but we had inside information, we
knew that the player was corrupt. I was sitting in the stands
watching the match and thought to myself:
"This
mother-fucker has balls made of steel".

Guys like Uncle were
the bigger crooks; what I do now, they were already doing back then.
I grew up watching these big fish fix matches under everybody's
noses. I learned from them; they were my masters. Even if I didn't
know their real names, I thought that if they could do it, then so
could I.

One day a Chinese
bookie at the stadium told me about another very powerful figure
among match-fixers.

"There is an
Indian guy in Sembawang", he whispered. "If you get to know
him, you are a rich man".

The bookie was
speaking of Pal.

I first met Pal in
1993. He was living in Sembawang, Singapore, near Yishun Park and not
far from Woodlands, where my family had moved after leaving Chua Chu
Kang. Pal and I first met due to a gambling incident.

A friend had taken
me to an office that dealt in property investments to meet a man
called Raja. Behind the financial facade, Raja was really a loan
shark, someone who could provide immediate cash when you were in dire
need. There were a lot of them in Singapore: with just your Singapore
ID, a contact number and a guarantor, you could get one thousand
dollars on the nail. You only collected eight hundred dollars though,
because two hundred were deducted immediately for your first payment,
leaving you with four more weekly installments to settle. Assuming
you paid on the first week but failed to pay on the second, you would
be back at square one. If you paid three installments and you
defaulted on the fourth, then you'd be back to the third. If you
didn't manage to repay your loan, your house would be splashed with
black or red paint. Some loan sharks would even burn down your
front-door or splash paint on your neighbor's house as well, hoping
that they would help you pay. Raja told us that in order to borrow
money from him we needed a guarantor. My friend and I guaranteed for
one-another and asked Raja if we could borrow some money to gamble,
so he offered his services again.

"If you want to
place bets on Malaysia Cup matches", he proposed, "you can
place them with me".

I didn't know that
Raja was throwing his bets through Pal; if I had known, I wouldn't
have placed my wager with him. My friend and I placed a 45 thousand
dollar bet with Raja on a football match between the Malaysian Police
team and the Singapore Lions. After their 1991-1992 relegation, the
Lions were playing in the Malaysian division two. When you were in
division two, you played against the Armed Forces of Malaysia, the
Malaysian Police and some other stupid teams here and there; all of
them being B-class sides. Unfortunately, the match did not go as
expected and we lost our bet. We didn't have enough money to pay Raja
back so, when Pal paid him a visit looking to cash in on his
business, Raja informed him of our unresolved debt.

"Look, this is
not my bet", he told Pal. "It's Wilson Raj Perumal's bet".

Pal sent his
bouncers out looking for me. After less than a week, as I walked out
of the local stadium after a match, I saw three men standing next to
a car who were eyeing me.

"Hey you",
one of them pointed his finger in my direction, "we want to
speak to you".

"What do you
want to speak to me about?" I inquired.

"You and your
friend", the man said, "you have some outstanding debts".

"I didn't bet
with you", I argued. "I bet with somebody else".

"Our boss wants
to see you right now", they cut me short.

I was not a gang
member; I was a peace-loving guy: gamble on football, hang out with
my friends then go back home, that's it.

"All right",
I said. "Let's go".

I climbed in their
car which headed out towards Yishun park, where their boss was
waiting for me.