Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer Read online

  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.

  Play games, share stories or read; those are the only ways to kill time in prison. I tried to avoid playing games with the others so that I could read my beloved books, which were still my best companion. But Thayam needs four players so, from time to time, I would participate to help out my cellmates. You need to have a timetable to survive the prison routine; mine was exercise in the morning with five hundred push ups and sit ups, a nap in the afternoon and Thayam after dinner. And life goes on, newcomers enter the cell, you swap stories, play games, read books and wait to be sentenced.

  After five months in remand, seeing that my case was going nowhere, I decided to take matters into my own hands and conduct my own trial. I had a lawyer but no money to pay him and the courts in Singapore do not usually provide a counsel for you so I made a request with the senior officer; I still remember his name, ASPC Mong San.

  "Sir", I asked, "I'm going to conduct my trial on my own. I need pen and paper".

  "Are you facing capital punishment?" he inquired.

  "No".

  "In that case, we cannot give you pen and paper".

  Goodbye. Finished. You may go now.

  Yard time usually lasted from one to one-and-a-half hours and, if you were allowed out in the morning on one day, on the following day you would be let out in the afternoon. Before entering the yard, you had to strip naked and squat before the on-duty prison guards; they wanted to make sure you were not smuggling anything outside. During yard time you could take a shower, wash your clothes, work out at the pull bar or play Sepak Takraw. Since I was given neither pen nor paper, I borrowed them during yard time and used my time to write down the questions that I was going to raise with the witnesses during the trial. Finally, the day of my first court session came and I was brought before the judge, who initially raised my hopes.

  "Since you are not represented", he pointed out, "I will give you some leeway".

  "Thank God", I thought, "this guy is on my side".

  "Your honor", I asked, "can I have my handcuffs removed so that I can write down the answers to the questions that I'm going to ask?"

  "No", the judge dismissed my request. "I cannot allow that. You have a previous charge for escaping custody in 1998 so I cannot allow your hands to be freed".

  "How can I conduct a trial with my hands cuffed?" I objected.

  "You'll just have to", said the judge, flushing my presumed innocence down the drain.

  I still had to give it a shot so, relying on the experience gathered during the trial that I had undergone in 1998, I approached the first witness: the DBS bank officer.

  "What is your name?" I asked; and the bank officer provided her details to the court.

  "What is the nature of your job?" I continued, "How long have you been in this profession?"

  Then, finally, I asked: "How did you deduce that the application form for the credit card was a fraud?"

  "I deduced it by looking at the financial document", she replied.

  There were only three court exhibits marked P1, P2 and P3.

  "Are you referring to one of these court exhibits?" I inquired as I showed them to her.

  "No", she answered, "I'm referring to the payslip".

  There was no payslip among the court exhibits so I turned to the judge.

  "Your honor", I asked, "the witness is referring to a payslip which has not been produced as a court exhibit".

  "If it's not there, it's not there", he waved me off. "Just go ahead with your questions".

  "Fuck", I thought, "what else am I supposed to ask?"

  "I have no further questions, your honor", I said.

  Then my friend, Chandar, came to the stand as a prosecution witness. When my turn came to question him, I asked: "Have you applied for a credit card before?"

  I knew he had. The fucker was staying at my place; we were good friends; we used to hang out together and all. I knew that he had used my father's address to apply for a Hong Kong Shanghai Bank credit card.

  "Have you ever applied for a credit card before?"

  "Yes", he answered.

  "Who filled out the application form for you?"

  "Another friend".

  "What was the mailing address?"

  "The accused's place of residence".

  "And did the accused hand the card over to you?"

  "Yes, the accused handed the card over to me".

  Then I asked him: "When did you first find out that the accused had applied for a credit card in your name?"

  "January something 2003", he replied.

  The mother-fucker had filed his complaint at the DBS Bank in November 2002. He was lying. I didn't go to law school and I'm not a professional attorney but I realized that I had to subpoena the DBS Bank officer from the credit card center to prove my case. The bank officer could have taken the stand, looked at the date of the complaint, and confirmed that my friend was lying. I voiced my request with the judge but, once again, he rejected it. As a last resort, I thought of calling Chandar back to the stand to expose his lies. I was sure that lawyers were allowed to call a witness back to the stand even though they had testified already, so I addressed the judge.

  "Can I call the prosecution witness back to the stand for further questioning?" I asked.

  "No", the judge cut me short, "just continue".

  Continue what? I realized that the court was fucking around with me. All the judges in the Subordinate Court already knew who Wilson Raj was. I was way too popular in their circle; they would all have lunch together at the same table and say: "See, this fucker never changes. Let's give him five years".

  They all knew about my antecedents but, first and foremost, I was the only one who had come clean from a match-fixing trial initiated by the CPIB in Singapore. I had beaten them and had therefore become the Attorney General's enemy. I stood there, before the court, with no room left to move; I could not subpoena the bank officer nor call the witnesses back to the stand; what else could I do?

  "OK", I capitulated. "I throw in the towel. I plead guilty".

  On the day of the sentence, the judge started off with the following words: "I've se
en your mother in this courtroom every single day since the trial began and I feel very sorry for her".

  "You fuck me up", I thought, "and you feel sorry for my mom?"

  I begged my sister to engage a lawyer to save what was left of my trial. She took out a five thousand dollar loan and hired one, but he didn't seem too bright. I expected him to take over the proceedings but he wanted me to do all the talking and asked me to request the witness to be recalled to the stand. It was written all over that I was in a kangaroo court. Finally, my lawyer went for a mitigation. We mitigated and I got a four-year sentence for my credit card fraud: forgery; maximum punishment. Then, in October 2003, I got an additional year for the fistfight with my girlfriend's sister's boyfriend. Once again: assault; maximum punishment. All in all, I was sentenced to five years and served four of them. Four fucking years that took everything out of me.

  Every single day I sat and thought: "How the fuck am I going to serve this? A five-year sentence for nothing. The bank did not incur any illegal loss; I did not obtain any illegal gain. Seen my previous convictions, maybe a fine would have been too light a sentence, but one or two years would have sufficed".

  I was totally broken.

  When I was taken back to my cell, Singh was gone. He had also been tried and had been moved to a different hall: the Preventive Detention hall. I spotted him once from the holes in the prison cell; I jumped, pulled myself up to the wind hole and stuck my face in.

  "Hey Singh", I called out. "How did it go?"

  "12 years", he said.

  "Fuck! Are you going to appeal?"

  "Yes, of course".

  The moment Singh said he wanted to appeal I thought to myself that the fucker was asking for further trouble.

  A few days later, I was made to climb into a prison van for the transfer to my final place of detention. Once again, Singh was there with me; he was going to Changi prison while I was headed to the Moon Crescent penitentiary, a more flexible environment.

  "OK", I told Singh, "this is the last time I'm ever going to see you. Take care of yourself. You've got 12 years. I've got five. Take care, my friend".

  In the Moon Crescent penitentiary I received much better treatment than I had received in Queenstown remand prison. I had gone from a guesthouse to a 3-star hotel. There were only 50 to 60 prisoners in each detention hall, bunk beds, games and TV in the evening. The prison also provided a working environment for the detainees in its three factories: the bakery, the laundry and the fertilizer plant. I worked in the fertilizer plant where we would grow soya, dry it up and turn it into compost. A contractor rented the space and we worked for him under the prison's supervision. I sometimes stepped into the bakery as well; it was the filthiest bakery that I have ever seen; there were rats running all over the place and the bread it baked was sold to hospitals outside. We were paid very small money: six Singapore dollars per week. Three dollars would go into our savings account and the other three could be spent to buy food. I never understood the principle behind the choice of splitting this tiny amount of money in two. What the fuck am I supposed to buy with just three dollars?

  The trade groups, or triads, were very present within the prison walls. When you entered the detention hall for the first time, if you belonged to any of the trade groups, you would have to declare your allegiance before the head-man of your triad and you would then sit together with them. I don't believe in gangs; they are just a safety net for their members but I'm not a troublemaker so I didn't bother joining any of them. Either way, we Indians believe in the principle that, no matter what group you belong to, when you go to prison, you sit with the Indians; it's common practice among us. The Malays sit with their gang, the Chinese sit with their gang, the Indians just sit with other Indians; the number one priority is our religion, not our trade group.

  In 2004, Singapore was enacting major transfers of inmates and I was moved to a new, high-tech prison: the Changi cluster prison. In Changi we had bigger, cleaner cells and the conditions were slightly better; there was a partial enclosure blocking the view to the toilet and there was a shower. The shower had a button that one had to hold pressed in order to activate the water so we improvised and found a way to keep it pressed by wedging a lever along its edge. When in prison, we always devised new ways to facilitate our lifestyle. After a short while, I began working in the laundry department. We would wash the linen, clothes and everything else for all the hospitals in Singapore. The laundry was computerized and high-tech; the machines were provided by a German company and about three hundred prisoners worked there. At Changi cluster prison I played a bit of basketball and could attend some matches in different halls. During one of these games I saw Singh; and Singh saw me.

  "You again. Fuck. How are you?" I asked Singh.

  "I'm coming out next year", the year was 2005.

  "What?" I asked. "How can you come out next year? Weren't you sentenced to 12 years?"

  "I have a strong case and I'm going to fight it out in court", he boasted, "I'll be out within a year".

  Singh sounded very confident. Years later I found out that he appealed and landed with Judge Woh, whom we called 'Mad' Woh. If you appealed, Judge Woh took it as a sign that you were not remorseful; that you were just trying to be funny with the law. Sometimes he would triple your sentence and make a mockery out of you.

  Once, a drama teacher named Gilberto was slapped with a maximum punishment of seven years for punching a lawyer in a family court. Gilberto had no criminal past but had hit his wife's lawyer during their divorce proceedings. He had no money and his wife was depriving him of all his resources and selling off his property, so he snapped. We met in prison when he was transferred to the laundry department. We Indians have the habit of offering some canteen items to newcomers so I gave Gilberto some food during our first encounter and we became acquainted. He spoke excellent English and even the superintendent could not hold a candle to his oratorical skills. When I met him, he had already appealed to Judge Woh.

  "You're going from seven to ten years", said Judge Woh on the day he landed his enhanced sentence.

  The prosecutor was concerned.

  "Your honor", he said, "this section carries a maximum punishment of seven years".

  "This is my provision, I decide", Judge Woh said and finished off with his customary belittling, "This is not a drama school and I am not here to buy your drama".

  I remember another case judged by 'Mad' Woh that caused a public outcry at the time. There was a young boy with a low IQ who had a tendency to molest people. He was sentenced to two years in prison and to six strokes of the cane.

  "Your honor", he pleaded, "can I have my prison term enhanced and be spared the caning?"

  He was trying to conduct a barter trade but Judge Woh increased his sentence to four years and kept the strokes.

  "I think you will now be happy", he said. "You wanted an enhanced sentence and that's what you got".

  The boy was retarded. Why weren't his unalienable rights represented? Why was he being ridiculed by the court? Judge Woh fucked up his case, but in Singapore they don't just throw you off the throne like they do in Europe; we have manners. They knew that he was going senile so they respectfully sent him off to another office and that was the end of Judge Woh.

  Unfortunately for Singh, when he appealed, 'Mad' Woh was still solidly at the helm. He threw Singh's case out and increased his sentence to 20 fucking years. I think that Singh was about two years older than me and that he had a son. He will be seeing sunlight again in 2023 and will have turned into a zombie by then; those who sit 20-over years in prison start pacing around aimlessly like the walking dead.

  While working in the laundry I got to know some of the guys who worked across the hall in the X-ray department where they collected mobile phones, newspapers and other things that people misplaced in their pockets when they sent their clothes to be washed. Finally, the football results began flowing in again and I was able to gamble. Manchester Utd vs Liverpool; we would
counter one another.

  "I give you half-ball".

  "I'll give you half-one".

  "I give you one".

  We were prisoners so we tried to gamble within our means; we wanted to see our winnings immediately so we would fight canteen items. Those of us that worked in the laundry had bigger allowances than the others: 20 dollars worth of canteen purchases. We would gamble with these items, not with money. If you won three dollars, you would make a shopping list worth three dollars and say: "OK. You can buy me a carton of milk or some soap".

  We would also gamble on inter-hall basketball matches.

  "OK. Who wants to bet?"

  "50 dollars canteen".

  "50 dollars is too heavy a bet for myself alone, let me ask around if anyone wants to share".

  Sometimes you won, sometimes you lost; gambling is basically just luck, you know. We gambled to spend the time because we needed to look forward. In detention, you need a purpose or else life is aimless; its course becomes just a senseless routine. While I was in jail I would do my best to organize events. I would write to the superintendent: "We should hold an inter-hall basketball tournament and a Sepak Takraw tournament".

  Some of the prison guards were supportive; there was a sergeant called Jeffrey who would pitch in his own pocket money to buy prizes for the winners. But the older officers didn't want to see you smile while you were locked up.