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

  There are many trade groups in Singapore. There is Ang Soon Tong, Sio Yi Ho, Hai Lok San, Salakau, San Kongsi; all of them are associated with Chinese triads. These gangs then branch out and take in the Indians and the Malaysians as well in sub-gangs. To be admitted into one of these gangs you have to show how bold you are by fighting against another fellow member of the triad. These trade groups organize functions during the Chinese Ghost Festival where all of their members call each other 'brother'. Some of the triad members have special tattoos: the tiger, for instance, belongs to Lok Huan. Each triad also has a number that distinguishes it from the others, Lok Huan is 24; Salakau is 369; one can call them Trade group 24, Trade group 369 and so on. Singapore is geographically divided among these triads. Yishun, where Pal lived, is Ang Soon Tong area; Hougang is also Ang Soon Tong; the old airport road behind Geylang is Salakau area; Geylang, the red light district, is split up among the different trade groups. The triads profit from the proceeds of prostitution, pornographic DVDs, drugs and dice gambling. If you want to walk into a neighborhood and do business, you have to seek consent from the block's trade group first. They aren't violent gangs like the ones in Mexico or Colombia but you don't want to breach certain rules. If a street is controlled by Ang Soon Tong and you want to go there and do business, that's where they sit, you go and speak to them.

  "You want to take over?" they'll ask. "You come and clash with us".

  After a clash, the victorious group will rule over the newly conquered territory.

  Gang members are hard to understand; their younger affiliates will often just loiter around town looking for trouble. If you happen to cross their gaze, they'll say: "Why are you staring at me?"

  This usually happens when the potential victim is outnumbered and, shortly thereafter, someone will often end up being slashed or stabbed for such a futile, inadequate motive. The neighborhood where I lived was split among two trade groups but I never cared to join either; I rejected the principle of violence, bullying, and didn't see how ten guys beating up on a loner could call themselves gangsters. At times we would be dancing in a nightclub and someone would shout: "Po!"

  "Po" is a way to call out the name of your triad. But if you happen to do it in the presence of members of other gangs, it is deemed an insult; a disrespectful slogan, and my gang is no lesser than your gang, so fights would break out. At times, gang members even killed one another for such stupid reasons. There were frequent gang clashes in Jurong, western Singapore; very violent battles with weapons and such. Pal was involved in one of these riots between the black gang and the red gang, two Indian sub-sections of Chinese trade groups.

  When there is a gang clash in Singapore and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) cannot identify those directly involved, they will pick up the head-men and some members of each group and just throw them in jail without a trial. It's called Section 55 and it can be applied to both gangsterism and drug-related offenses. The police will nab a few gang members and get them to testify that you are a member of their trade group, then they can lock you up without a trial for five to seven years. This law is still applied in Singapore, which is nonetheless considered to be a democratic country. Pal was in Section 55 for three years. Only three years; lucky bastard.

  Pal was born a gambler. When he was detained, gambling was already rife within the prison walls; it was the only way to kill time and Pal actively took part in it. The stake in jail was usually tobacco or cash. When you lost, if you paid your debt inside, the amount you owed would remain unchanged; but if your debt was settled outside, you would have to pay three times the amount lost. Prisons often assemble sports teams and organize competitions between the different prison halls. Pal used to bribe the players in the basketball teams and Sepak Takraw teams in order to win his bets. Sepak Takraw is a three-man game that is very popular among Malaysians; it's like a mix of football and tennis. Football gambling was also a common pass-time in jail, as I found out myself when I was locked up.

  I was told that when Pal came out in 1989, he struck a huge win with the 4D: four digits. In Singapore, 4D's are very popular; they're much like the lottery: you pick four numbers and, if they are drawn, you win. The weekly 4D weekend draws attract long queues of gamblers outside the Singapore Pools lottery shops. But Singapore Pools are not the only ones that sell 4D tickets. The Chinese bookmakers have always put up a stiff competition against the legal gambling industry and offered their own, illegal, 4D lottery. The only difference between the two is that the Chinese will pay your win on the same night, while the State-licensed companies will wait until the following day and will issue a check for any win above ten thousand Singapore dollars. After he was released from prison, Pal apparently bought a lot of illegal 4Ds and struck a one-million-dollar jackpot. His pockets bulging with cash, Pal thought: "Fuck. I can execute the same match-fixing that I did in prison in the Malaysia Cup".

  Certain Malaysian state teams had plenty of Indian guys in their lineups. Somehow Pal managed to find one or two Indian international players who could help him and began fixing their matches. With the help of these players, he slowly began knitting a network of Indian footballers throughout all of Malaysia. The Indian players brought in their Malaysian colleagues, who in turn brought in the Chinese; soon Pal had an empire at his feet and, by the year 1992, was able to control as many as 10 out of the 14 Malaysian state teams playing in the cup. In some of these teams, Pal controlled as many as 11 players at once. His success was due in large part to the huge amounts of money that he offered to his players. It was an unprecedented phenomenon in the Malaysia Cup and Pal soon managed to wipe away all of his competitors; no one was able to match his quota.

  In those days, the Chinese guys who fixed matches would bet two to three hundred thousand Singapore dollars tops on a single game, while Pal was betting 1 to 1.5 million dollars per match. While the other fixers were afraid that, if they incurred a significant loss, they would have never been able to recover, Pal trusted his players and bought their loyalty with handsome presents. Soon he could boast total control over players, referees and officials; everyone hanged on his lips. His bets were so large that they would alter the odds: if the odds were one-ball and Pal decided to give, they would increase to five-ball. Then, if he was collecting the wager from the five-ball, the odds would drop back down to one. It was total havoc.

  In those years we never placed our bets in China but the wagers were nonetheless all managed by Chinese agents; everything related to gambling was absorbed by them. Malaysia was just a phone call away and in Singapore there were plenty of Chinese runners, trustworthy runners, who could absorb three million dollars within an hour. You just needed to call them: "Bet for me".

  These Chinese runners went by the names of Ah Blur, Ah Swuey, Ah Lim, Ah Tong, Ah Chai. Their names were actually Blur, Swuey, Lim and so on, but the Chinese in Singapore have the habit of pronouncing an 'Ah' in front of their names or nicknames. These Chinese runners had places where they could throw their bets; I don't know who the final collector of the wagers was because there were a number of agents in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Pal employed a myriad of these Chinese runners; about 10-20 guys who worked under him, buying and selling his bets. He was probably the first Indian boss who had the Chinese bowing down before him. He was so powerful and so confident that he would go so far as to organize what we called 'ghost games'.

  "Selangor FA is playing Johor FC", he would announce.

  Asian betting companies usually had a source in the local FA that told them which matches were going to be played on what dates. Pal would bribe that person to publish the Selangor vs Johor match among the official fixtures of the day and inform the betting companies. After being added to the FA's schedule, Pal's bogus match became official and would pop up for betting among the daily fixtures. All he needed to do now was to pay random amateur players to wear the Selangor and Johor team jerseys and play. He used this trick a few times, until the betting companies caught
on.

  Although he was making millions, Pal still looked like a villager. The slippers on his bare feet were always the first thing that one saw as he stepped out of his green Mercedes 320, the biggest Mercedes-Benz in Singapore at the time. Pal was originally from Sembawang, another rural area in Singapore like Chua Chu Kang, where I was born. We were not born rich, with the silver spoon and all of that; we're not from royal or distinguished families; we were all poor guys. The name Pal in Tamil means 'milk'. When Pal was young, he rode through his neighborhood on his bicycle selling milk from his parent's cows. That's why we were never really into posh things like a villa with a swimming pool and a bar counter; we were not into that way of life, nor did we ever cherish any of those luxurious belongings; we were just gamblers. Pal didn't have an education - I don't think that he ever went to school - he spoke broken English and was not the kind of guy who could carry himself very well. He was a chain smoker, his favorite brand was Dunhill, and he would fuck all the women who worked for him. He had no respect for others and was a big show-off: Pal would step into your house and try to fuck your woman under your nose; he was that kind of guy. Somebody told me that he has now become a Dato, an honorary title that is bestowed upon respected figures in Malaysia; something like an honorary doctorate degree.

  "Doctor Pal", I thought, when I first heard the news. "Fucking bastard, he cannot recite the alphabet from A to Z and he's a doctor".

  But Pal had a Ph.D when it came down to being street-smart. He had the ability to convince people and, if need be, he had a very sweet tongue.

  When we first met, Pal knew that I was fixing local matches because it was in the market-talk. Besides the rigged games that I sometimes organized at the Jalan Besar stadium, I fixed matches between company teams like the Intercontinental Hotel vs the Hyatt Hotel and other such unimportant fixtures. These were Inter-Hotel League games. If I happened to have some friends working in one of the hotels that were competing, I would ask them to assist me in approaching the players.

  "Hey", I would ask them. "Why don't you take money to lose the match today".

  "OK".

  It wasn't professional football and sometimes I could speak directly to the managers of the teams and put my friends in their lineups. I remember that once I was dead broke and one of these amateur matches was coming up. I had watched one of the teams play and lose 5-0 against another mediocre amateur squad. Early in the morning on the day of the game I assembled some footballers that I knew and together we went to speak to the team's manager.

  "Look", I told him, "your team is pathetic. Why don't you take two or three of my players. They can do a good job".

  The manager tried a few of my friends out, saw them play, then agreed to my proposal.

  "OK, no problem", he said. "I can take these two players".

  Two of my players were now in the starting lineup, ready to lose the match.

  "You play the last man and you play the right guy", I instructed them.

  The odds were 0.5 so all we needed was to lose by one goal. Although my two friends were playing to lose, our team scored first. Now we had to concede two goals in order to win our bet. In the 60th minute, the other team equalized: 1-1. With 30 minutes left in the game I was confident that my boys would deliver the result that I needed, but the clock kept ticking and, when the injury time began, my friends still hadn't conceded the goal.

  "Touch the fucking ball with your hand, you asshole!" I shouted from the side of the pitch. One of my friends had a clear opportunity for a hand-ball in the penalty box but the fucker let it slip.

  The match ended 1-1 and we lost our money. I was dumbfounded. Fuck. We had gotten someone with money to place bets for us on credit and now we were indebted.

  "Look, this game here is fixed", we had informed him. "You can bet on it 100 percent but please throw some money for us as well".

  "Deal", he had said. "I'll bet five thousand for you and five thousand for me".

  And we all died ten thousand. After the match, I confronted my friend.

  "You fucking bastard", I shouted. "I threw money on this game. You knew that the only money in our pockets was the one we used for the bus fare to get here. You know how hard it was for me to get you into the team. I bring you a chance to make easy cash and in the 90 minutes that you played you could not concede one penalty for me? What the fuck! Are you trying to kill me or what?"

  My friend remained silent. I am not the type of guy that throws a tantrum after a defeat; I can usually turn the clock back, calm down and think positive. I recovered and called the bookie to tell him that I would pay my debt on the following day. Match-fixing is not a walk in the park and I took every defeat as a lesson.

  I always tried to approach players whom I trusted to win a match first. One such footballer was Michal from the Czech Republic. At 29 years of age, Michal was a real class player; he could single-handedly take on six or seven men. When in Europe, he had played in the Czech club Slavia Prague, then had moved to Malaysia's Sabah FC and finally to Singapore's Geylang International FC. When I first saw him play, I wondered: "How the fuck did this guy end up in the Malaysia Cup?"

  Fans in those days were not very nice to foreign players that were not up to the required standard; they would become the ideal target for jokes that made the entire crowd in the stands burst into uncontrolled laughter.

  "Oi! Look at that white guy, he's useless", someone would shout. "What is this: you buy one white guy and you get one free?"

  But not Michal; he was a mid-sized, skinny guy, but he was fast and really good with the ball; a different kind of player. He and I used to patronize the same nightclub, Top 10, Orchard Towers, in downtown Singapore. Top 10 was a very popular nightclub at the time; there was a live band that played R&B and most of the top foreign footballers spent their evenings there because it was the number one joint in Singapore. Football players are quite simple: they're womanizers; always busy with their girlfriends and with training. Partying, nightclubs, women, football, that's it. And these were foreign players; their salaries were higher than those of the local players; they could easily make up to 10 or 15 thousand US dollars per month. One night I decided to approach Michal at the Top 10. After a brief chat, I cast my hook.

  "What if I pay you to win football games?" I inquired.

  Michal was curious, "How many goals would you need for us to win?"

  Michal's following match was the quarter-finals of the President's Cup to be played in Jalan Besar against the Police team. I tried to explain the workings of the odds to Michal, then told him what I wanted.

  "This coming game, win by three goals against the Police team. Do you think it's possible?"

  "I won't promise anything", he answered, "but I'll try my best. What's my share in this?"

  "I'll pay you five thousand dollars", I replied.

  The year was 1992, Geylang International FC was the top team in Singapore's Premier League and Michal was their special player. But this didn't mean that you could just go out there and win money; you still had to fight the odds. Geylang was giving 1.5, and winning by two goals would have sufficed but the Chinese bookies were conspiring against me; the mother-fuckers had pushed the odds up to 2.5 and I was desperate. I had already committed to Michal so I placed 40 thousand dollars on Geylang to win by three goals. In the first half, Michal was like: boom, boom, 1-0, 2-0. Then, at the beginning of the second half, there was a big commotion: Michal had not walked out of the changing room and onto the pitch. I was clueless; I thought that he had been injured.

  "Michal", the coach had told him during the half-time break, "we still have the return leg, the semi-finals and the finals to play so I don't want to field you for the second half. I want you to stay out and rest".

  In the changing room, Michal had kicked and screamed that he wanted to play but the coach had been immovable. The match ended 2-0 and I lost my money.

  Later that night, Michal and I met at the Top 10.

  "Sorry man", Michal apolog
ized. "The coach didn't want me to get injured before the return match. How many goals do you need this time?"

  "I need three goals", I said. "Are you sure that you can give them to me?"

  "This Police team is a tough one", he considered. "Why do we need three goals? Can't we just win by one?"

  "Fuck", it was exactly what I wanted to hear from him, "this guy really bit the bait".

  "OK, Michal", I said, "this is what we'll do". We'll see how tough this team is this time around. Keep the game on hold during the first half and don't make any effort to score. I will come to you at half-time and tell you what I need. I'm not going to say: 'Michal, I want two goals'. I'll yell from the sideline: 'Come on, Geylang, two more'".

  "Good", said Michal.

  My plan was to bet on Geylang to win by one goal and the odds had started off favorable, but Pal was also hitting on the match and was collecting so much that I was forced to bet on two goals. I decided to give 1.5 and I started throwing 40-50-70 thousand dollars. My ticket was complete within 10-15 minutes from kick off and the score was still unaltered. The first half closed 0-0, then, as the second half was about to kick off, Michal ran past the Grand Stand and I shouted at him: "Come on Geylang! Three more!"

  Michal stared at me as he trotted by with a "Fuck! Three more?" kind of look in his eyes.

  Pam, pam, the match ended 2-0. Michal scored one goal and created the other for one of his teammates. That night, Michal and I met at the Top 10 again.

  "What the fuck", he said. "You want three goals in 45 minutes, you think I'm superman or what?"

  "No, no, no", I laughed as I handed him his share, "two goals were enough, I just wanted to make sure".

  Not many match-fixers will change their strategy during a game. Most of them don't like to take chances but I was different; I enjoyed the thrill of asking players or teams to fight the odds and win a game.