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

  "What is this?" he asked.

  "Ghanaian Cedis", I replied. "They should change one-to-one with the US dollar".

  The man laughed.

  "You can use these as toilet paper", he commented, "they're worthless here".

  Fuck. I left the airport and began asking around about the usual hanging outs of the Ghanaian in Amsterdam. I was directed to an area near the Amsterdam Arena where I found a barber shop run by a Ghanaian.

  "Can you change these for me?" I asked the barber.

  He smiled and did so with a fucked-up exchange rate. Bastard.

  As soon as I had changed the worthless Ghanaian cash I returned to the airport and hopped on my flight to Singapore. After landing, I found Mega waiting for me outside the terminal with his car. I bought a copy of the Straits Times, a Singaporean newspaper, and was catching up on the local news as Mega drove us home.

  "Mega!" I shouted. "Fuck! U-turn!"

  The newspaper reported that the Lebanese national team had come to play a 2010 World Cup qualifier against Singapore in the Lion City on the previous day. I did my math: "They must have checked out of their hotel some time today and then gone to the airport to catch their flight back to Lebanon".

  I knew the flight schedule: Singapore - Beirut, 9:00 p.m. Terminal 1. They were probably at the airport already.

  "Mega, let's jet to T1".

  As soon as we arrived at the Terminal, I hopped out of the car.

  "You go and park the vehicle", I told Mega. "I'll go and check if they are there".

  As expected, the Lebanese players were inside the Terminal having a snack at Burger King's while waiting for their flight to board. Mega parked the car and joined me in front of the terminal's entrance.

  "Mega", I told him, "you take a seat, relax and watch me walk in like a Zidane football agent".

  I strolled in and approached two or three of the players; their English was very poor so I kept it simple.

  "I'm a football agent", I said as I extracted my name card from my pocket. "What's your name? You want to come and play in Singapore? Give me your number and I'll ring you up".

  I saved the telephone numbers and e-mails of a few of the Lebanese players for future reference. I knew that Singapore was going to play the return leg in Beirut and I was ready to convince the Lebanese boys to do business.

  In mid-May 2008, I traveled to Malaysia to greet the Nigerian and Togolese teams that were arriving in Kuala Lumpur for the Inter Continental Cup. Once they were settled, we convinced the head of the Togo delegation and the players to dance to our tune with money, alcohol and women, just like we had done with Zimbabwe; we made them happy and they were ready to deliver.

  "There is nothing for you to take home from this tournament", I told them, "no appearance fee, no prize money but, if you do as I say, there are 50 thousand dollars per match waiting for you. You know, it's good money".

  Same deal.

  Murugan advised me not to sit with the teams on their bench during the match, so I left my seat to Mega who was going to supervise the match side-by-side with the Togolese coach. Mega's duty was to speak to him and instruct him on what we needed of his team. The coach understood English; he would listen to Mega's instructions, then relay the information to the players in French during the game. He could just shout our orders at them since nobody understood French in Malaysia. I took a seat in the stands and waited for the match to kick off. Harry was placing the bets while Mega and I were just receiving a cut: 80 thousand dollars, 50 thousand of which went to the players. All in all, Mega and I would be making 30 thousand dollars per match which, unbeknownst to Harry, we would partially use to place our own bets behind his back. We were like instructors; we had an obligation to make the fix go through, then we would get our 30 thousand; otherwise, nobody would be paid.

  The first match was Togo vs Chile. Despite Mega being kicked off the Togolese bench after a handful of minutes, the game went well. Chile defeated Togo 5-1 and we all made money. Eighty thousand dollars in total; 30 went to us and 50 to the players.

  In their second match, Togo played against Croatia.

  "Lock the game", ordered Harry.

  I don't know why, but there was an unusual fluctuation in the odds before kick off; the betting volume was just huge: everybody was taking Over so Harry chose to go Under. Dumb fucker. Why would you want to lock a match when you paid money to bring a team all the way from Africa to Malaysia to lose? The Croatians hadn't sent their best team over, they had just picked some players here and there, but there was still no assurance that we would be able to lock the game against them. The Togo boys tried to resist the Croatian assault and succeeded until the 47th minute when, during injury time, Croatia managed to score, 1-0. Fuck.

  Harry you dumb mother-fucker.

  The match ended 1-0; despite the final result in favor of Croatia we made money from the game's handicap and Harry granted us our habitual 80 thousand: 30 for us and 50 to the players.

  Then came the third match, Togo vs Australia, and again there was a strange movement in the odds before kick off. After the first two games, experienced punters knew that Togo was being manipulated by someone so, for their final match against Australia, everybody was putting their money on the Socceroos to win. The odds had shifted once again and Harry thought that we were fucking him up. He suspected that we were betting our own money behind his back or that we had sold the information to somebody else so he decided not to place any bets on the fixture, which meant that we would not be receiving our cut. As I later found out, Murugan's boss Dan Tan had predicted Harry's move.

  "Harry is going to fuck them up", he had laughed to Murugan. "He is not going to bet on the last game".

  I had 70 thousand dollars of my own available at the time so I decided to take the gamble.

  "Fuck Harry", I said. "Let's prove this mother-fucker wrong. We take Togo", and I placed all of my savings, 70 thousand dollars, on the Togolese team.

  A draw would have been enough for us to win since Australia was giving one-ball. I spoke to the Togolese players as though I were their coach.

  "We can pack the defense and not take any goals", I tried to psych them up.

  "OK, boss", they said.

  The match started, 1-0, 2-0 for Australia by half-time.

  "Fuck. My money is gone", I thought.

  The stadium was next to empty because it was a meaningless fixture and people were busy with other games in other venues. There were a total of two or three persons sitting in the stands. Mega and I were standing on the race track behind the Togo bench speaking to their coach through a chain-link fence; we were trying to find a solution but couldn't come up with anything. I was on good terms with Botak, the long-haired boss who controlled Laos in the Dunhill Cup; I had informed him from time to time about my fixes through a common Chinese friend. Being out of ideas, I decided to call him up and ask for his advice.

  "Botak", I explained the situation. "What do I do now?"

  "Ask your players to fight and abandon the game", he suggested.

  After the fuck up with the floodlights in England, the rules of the betting system had changed. No full 90 minutes, no payout; if a match doesn't finish, all bets are canceled. I turned to the coach.

  "Ask your players to play a very rough game", I told the coach. "Try to start a fight and abandon the pitch. We walk out".

  "That's not necessary", he replied.

  "Then what do we do?" I asked.

  "I make three changes and we take two or three red cards", he explained. "Then a couple of our players get injured and we won't have enough footballers to continue the match. Once there are only six players left in the field, the game is automatically abandoned".

  "OK", I said, "make it so".

  With less than half an hour to go to the final whistle, two Togolese players were given red cards and were sent off the pitch, then three subs came in and three more Togolese players feigned injuries in the head and had to be carried out on stretchers. With onl
y six Togolese players remaining on the pitch, the referee called off the match and I got my money back.

  The last match that we fixed at the Inter Continental Cup was Nigeria vs Iraq. The fixture had no real bearing for Nigeria as they had already qualified for the next round of the tournament. The Nigerians were upset with the cup's organizers because there were no appearance fees nor any prize money for the champions. I decided to use their discontent, assembled their delegation and spoke to them frankly.

  "We want you to go for a draw, 0-0", I said. "Do not put the ball in the net and lock your defense. No goals, 50 thousand after the match".

  The Nigerians agreed to do business and play for a goalless draw so we decided to go for Under. I was sitting in the stands watching the match: first half, 0-0, and Nigeria had put a lock on the game. We even arranged for a guy to stand by the door to the changing room and remind the players not to score as they ran out onto the pitch for the second half. Then, in the 93rd minute, as I was already savoring my win, there was a foul in the Iraqi penalty box. For an instant, the referee was in two-minds on whether to award the penalty shot or not, then he brought the whistle to his mouth and pointed his finger at the penalty spot. Fuck. I was pretty confident that our player, a short Nigerian guy named John who was well aware of the fix, was not going to score. But maybe we hadn't drilled it into him well enough and part of him still wanted to impress the coach in view of the selection for the upcoming Beijing Olympics. John positioned the ball on the spot, took a short run-up then sent the ball flying straight into the net. Fuck.

  After the match, the entire Nigerian delegation was left with heads hanging in disappointment. The 50 thousand that I had promised would have been shared among them but now there was nothing to share save for a meaningless victory. I met John in the hotel's lobby on the following day.

  "Why the fuck did you score?" I asked him.

  John just sat there and looked at me.

  "Because of you", I pointed my finger in his face, "we lost money and nobody in your team got paid".

  After that match, John became a pariah in the Nigerian team; the coach dropped him and he wasn't selected to go to the Olympics in Beijing. Soon thereafter, I remember reading a statement by John in the papers.

  "They didn't take me to the Olympics", he claimed, "because I scored a goal against Iraq".

  But nobody really cared.

  When I returned to Singapore from Malaysia, word of the Togo vs Australia match that we had canceled had spread in the market. People were very surprised to learn that such a thing could be done and they were all extremely impressed. Even Dan Tan, Murugan's boss, had heard the news.

  "He accomplished this?" Dan asked Murugan, "This thing is perfect. I want to meet this Wilson Raj".

  I had known of Tan Seet Eng, aka Dan Tan, as Ah Blur, when he was throwing bets for Pal and Bryan in the early 90's but had never met him in person. Ah Blur. The name fit him well; it was fucking tailor-made for him. When we met at the Goodwood Park Hotel in Singapore in mid-2008, I thought: "This fucker looks blurry".

  If you saw him you too would understand; he'd be sitting there in front of you daydreaming, then you'd suddenly call him and he'd snap out of his reverie and be like: "What?"

  Blurry mother-fucker.

  "Hi, I'm Dan", he introduced himself.

  "OK", I said.

  "I've known about you for a long time", he continued.

  Dan was a Chinese-Singaporean with roundish features and, although he was about my same age, had a boyish-looking face, much like a child's; he was very well-versed in English and had in-depth knowledge of the gambling milieu.

  "I've heard your name before too", I said, "but we've never met. I knew you as Ah Blur".

  We began to chat and I found that Ah Blur was acquainted with all the old friends from the Jalan Besar stadium. He didn't attend the matches but was already in the betting circle as a bookmaker when I used to hang out at Jalan Besar, so he knew the Chinese bookies and the punters who usually spent their time there.

  During the early 90's, while working for Pal, Ah Blur could pick up the telephone and bet two million dollars on a single game. At that time he had become very close to Bryan, Pal's second-in-command, and was helping him throw Malaysia Cup bets behind Pal's back. Then, sometime in 1994, during the World Cup in the United States, Bryan fucked Ah Blur up. I was told that Bryan threw close to 1.5 million dollars on a Russia game and couldn't pay up so he went missing. Ah Blur, who had placed Bryan's wagers, also had to flee from Singapore and hide in Thailand while Bryan's creditors looked for him high and low.

  "I got divorced because of that mother-fucker Bryan", Ah Blur told me as we shared old memories. "He borrowed 100 thousand dollars from my father-in-law and never paid him back. Because of him, my first wife didn't want to have anything to do with me anymore. Bryan destroyed my family; my wife left me because of him".

  From Thailand, Ah Blur had managed to contact Bryan's creditors and negotiate a solution.

  "I will give you some settlement, some installment payment", he told them and was able to return to Singapore.

  Once home, Ah Blur continued to move around with Bryan until he was arrested for illegal bookmaking in horse races in 1998; he even shared a cell with Pal at one point in time. Since Pal couldn't venture outside Southeast Asia while Bryan could, Ah Blur became Bryan's boy and kept his books, ran errands for him and carried his bag when Bryan gambled his money away in casinos.

  "Give me 50 thousand", Bryan would tell Ah Blur with an outstretched arm.

  "OK, boss".

  Back in the 90s, Ah Blur would not have been able to point to Italy on a world map; it was Bryan who widened his horizons and gave him knowledge of the outside world. By the time I met him, Ah Blur was not teaming up with Bryan anymore. Although he was still broke, he had become Dan Tan the boss.

  "So, Wilson", Dan asked, "what can you do?"

  "I have a good relationship with Lebanon", I said. "Their next game is in June this year against Singapore in Beirut. It's a 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier; an official match".

  I had already spoken over the telephone with the Lebanese players that I had met at the Singapore airport and they had agreed to do business.

  "Would you like to do this match?" I asked Dan.

  "No", he said. "I don't want to do this match".

  "Is it OK with you if I bring it to Harry then?" I asked.

  "Let Harry do it", Dan conceded.

  Dan and Harry had done business together before but they didn't really trust one another.

  "I passed a project over to Harry through Mega once", Dan explained, "and told the mother-fucker to play 20 thousand per game for me but he didn't play anything; he didn't place any of my bets. Let Harry do Lebanon on his own. What else have you got?"

  "OK", I proposed, "let me go to South Africa. I've got a couple of matches there".

  Dan bought tickets to South Africa for Murugan and I. Once there, we traveled to Bloemfontein, Free State, where Ghana was set to play against Lesotho on June 8th, 2008, in yet another 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier. In Bloemfontein, Murugan and I met the Lesotho players. Among them, I recognized some familiar faces that I had done business with during the 2007 Merdeka Cup in Malaysia. Within hours I managed to win three or four of them to our cause.

  "Ghana must win by three goals", I dictated.

  "OK", they replied, "we are ready".

  We didn't give the Lesotho players any money ahead of the match because they had already dealt business with me and knew that I would not default with the payments. Dan was doing the betting from Singapore. The match started, Ghana 1-0, Ghana 2-0, Ghana 3-0. Then one of the Ghanaian players, Agogo something, missed an open sitter and all of a sudden, with two minutes left to go, Lesotho footed a shot from forty meters, 3-1. Lesotho then proceeded to net a second goal a minute later, 3-2. The game backfired and we lost. How the fuck can Lesotho score two goals against Ghana? Unfortunately, we didn't have any strikers on our side, so,
if they happened to score, there wasn't much that we could do about it; it was just bad luck. I called Dan.

  "Fuck", I said to him. "It was a fluke goal that started it all. What am I supposed to do? You tell me. Two goals in the last two minutes of the match. Lesotho scoring twice against Ghana, it's unbelievable".

  After the match, Murugan and I returned to Johannesburg. Dan had given us a credit card to use for travel expenses and we abused it to the hilt. After that, Dan never made the mistake of giving us another card.

  Our second match, South Africa vs Sierra Leone on June 21st in Pretoria, was yet another 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier. We approached the Sierra Leone team and spoke to their goalkeeper and to two of their back-line defenders on the eve of the match. We handed the goalie a five thousand dollar deposit and promised more money to come after the game. In 2008, the market rate for players was around 20 thousand per match for a goalkeeper and 10 thousand for each of the defenders. As Murugan and I spoke to the players, we could tell that their level of commitment was not 100 percent. They were listening to our words but were thinking: "If it happens, we take the money, if it doesn't, we don't".

  We sensed their unconvinced disposition but had nothing to lose. After such a long trip we were not going to cancel the match and go home empty-handed. We weren't going to be so loyal to Dan as to say: "Hey Dan, these guys are not fully convinced, let's drop the match".

  We took the gamble and tried our luck. South Africa was supposed to win but they couldn't go beyond a draw, 0-0. Given their wealth and infrastructure, South Africa should have been the top team in the African continent but, instead, they were hopeless. We lost money but had secured a relationship with an official from the Sierra Leone FA, a man called Abu Bakar. I saved his telephone number and e-mail for future reference.