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

  "How much credit do you need?" he asked Dan. "You just place your order over the phone and I'll do the betting for you".

  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 cam
e 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.

  "Dan", I asked, "are you sending money to Beirut?"

  We had a heated argument, then Dan called Murugan.

  "Why the fuck did you tell Wilson that you were traveling to Lebanon?" he thundered. "Go and carry that money now. You either work for me or you work for him".

  From that day on, Murugan came to my side and Dan stopped using him as a runner. He began employing a Chinese hair stylist called Choo, also known as Mark, as his new runner. As Dan didn't have any close friends in Singapore, Choo quickly became his closest pal. He was not one of the brightest people I have met but if Dan told him, "sit down", Choo would sit. Choo loved to gamble on horse races and Dan never failed to reprimand him for it.

  "Don't play those fucking horses!".

  Overall, Choo was a nice guy; he would go on and on talking about anything but, if there was something he really knew nothing about, it was football.

  Since parting ways with Dan, I had sought another boss to continue doing business. In late March 2009 I contacted Harry, who by then was not as powerful as he used to be. In fact, he brought along three partners to our meeting who could provide funding for my fixes. We met over coffee in Singapore and exchanged some anecdotes. It was the very first time that I met Harry in person. After some generic chatter, Harry brought up the Sierra Leone match in which Dan had fucked him up and suggested my involvement.

  "Harry", I said, "you and I have never seen each other before. The only place I remember seeing you was in Queenstown remand prison but we never spoke face to face. There has never been any rivalry between us, so you tell me why the fuck would I have needed to double cross you during the Merdeka Cup. You know who's responsible for your loss".

  "Dan Tan mother-fucker", Harry quivered with rage, "I went down below his block and asked him to come down. His wife was screaming: 'Don't go, don't go, don't go'. When Dan came out of the building I grabbed his neck and wanted to wring it like a chicken's but his wife kept screaming from her window so I eventually let him go".

  Dan had fucked Harry upside down but this had not prevented him from giving Harry a call when in need.

  "Dan called me earlier today", Harry revealed. "He said: 'Hey, there is this UC Albinoleffe match coming up. It's a 100 percent sure win'".

  UC Albinoleffe was playing in the Italian Serie B, the second division, and Harry had enough credit to throw such a bet for Dan. I was surprised to hear that Dan had made it to Italy. We were not working together anymore, but still spoke occasionally and Dan had never mentioned the circumstance to me. I know that there are certain things that are supposed to remain business secrets. If I had an Italian Serie B game on my hands, I would not share the information with anyone else.

  "Did Dan ask you to bet for him?" I asked Harry.

  "Yeah", he confirmed with a sour smile, "the fucker asked me to call for 300 thousand dollars".

  "And what did you tell him?"

  "I said: 'Hey, the maximum I can do for you is 100 thousand'".

  In case of a win, Harry could have fucked Dan up by refusing to pay him but it would have meant that the information about fixed matches would have stopped coming his way. This is the nature of our business: sometimes you must be ready to swallow your ego in order to make money.

  "I placed 300 thousand dollars on the Albinoleffe match", added Harry. "100 thousand for Dan and 200 thousand for myself".

  The Albinoleffe match was a life buoy for Dan and was the first of a series of games that picked him back up to his old shine. Dan's European partners had contributed to spread the word among the players in Italy.

  "Hey, there is this Chinese guy who can place huge bets".

  Dan wasn't manipulating the matches directly. The Italians arranged the fixes among themselves then placed their wagers through Dan, who rode on their tips. After the first Albinoleffe game, Dan's popularity grew steadily. The word spread like wildfire, deeper and deeper, and the Italians came in flocks. Dan moved to a villa in Slovenia and people traveled there to meet him: players, match-fixers, gamblers. He just sat there like a Chinese mafia boss.

  "Can you place bets for me?" they asked.

  "Yes I can", Dan answered. "How much money can you put on the table?"

  "500 thousand".

  "OK. But can you give me a 3-0 result?"

  "No, we can give you 2-0".

  "For 2-0 I will not be able to bet that much", Dan would bargain. "I need 3-0 for that amount".

  Dan was no bet
ting house, he was just a bridge to Asian gambling and would sell the wagers on to other people like Harry or Ah Kang who could absorb them. A betting house like Ah Kang's was able to place as much as two million euros worth of bets. But the Italian players didn't know Ah Kang so they had to go through Dan. All Dan would do was pick up the telephone and place the bets, then he would send his runner to distribute the winnings to the players. If you are a punter, you are a punter, and here was a guy who could throw two million euros on a match for you. Take Giuseppe Signori, for instance, the former SS Lazie striker who was arrested by the Italian police. He had the right contacts with players who were willing to gamble on their own matches. If each of the players placed one hundred thousand euro on the match and Signori placed an additional two to six hundred thousand, Dan would throw three million dollars of his own money on top of theirs. Not the first time around, of course, but if the players were throwing their own money on their match, it was a guarantee that the result would follow. And if the first match was successful and the second one was too, why worry about the third? It was just going to happen.

  You might be wondering why Italian players trusted an anonymous Chinese guy with that much money. We're talking hundreds of thousands of euro so, will you trust someone with it or not? If one can gradually build that trust and deliver, then why should they look for another guy? In Singapore alone there were over 20 individuals who could do what Dan was doing, but the Italians didn't know them, they only knew Dan Tan. And he began making millions without even having to pay corruption money; Dan had started building his empire on rock-solid foundations.

  CHAPTER IX

  My own boss

  International friendly matches do not affect a team's FIFA ranking unless they are played on FIFA international match calendar dates; if they aren't, they don't count. These friendly games are the product of an agreement between two associations affiliated to FIFA or of the mediation of a FIFA match agent. The best thing about international friendlies is that, save for the final score, nobody reports to FIFA what happens on the pitch. Unless it's an official fixture, such as a World Cup qualifier, there is no match commissioner appointed by FIFA, UEFA, AFC, CAF or by any other continental football governing body to evaluate the performance of the referee, give him a grade and file a report. The match commissioner is the most powerful man in a football game. He has the power to call off a match if he finds the security to be inadequate, the conditions of the pitch to be unsatisfactory or any other natural cause to hinder the regular unfolding of a game.