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

by Wilson Raj Perumal

  "Fuck", I thought, "if only the first touch had been good, the ball would have been in the net".

  The final whistle blew and the 400 thousand dollars that I had placed on 2.25 were gone; the rest, which I had placed on two-ball, were returned. When you lose, it takes some time, a few hours or so, for you to recover and look back on your defeat.

  "Villa mother-fucker", I thought. "How could he miss the penalty?"

  You never blame yourself for a loss; you blame the players. The highlights from the match flashed in my mind over and over. If the score had been one-nil, I could have gone to sleep peacefully and thought: "Fuck, no luck".

  But it was two-nil and there was a penalty in favor of Spain; the money was as good as in my pocket. I was so close. I think that Spain fucked the match up. If the same game were to be played again, I would punt another 1.2 million expecting Spain to win by three goals because I know that they can easily put three goals past Honduras. I call it the adventurous punt. After Spain vs Honduras, I continued to bet on the South African matches until most of the money that I had made with my fixes was gone.

  Before leaving South Africa, I asked my family in Singapore to visit my relatives in Johor, Malaysia. I booked a ticket and flew there to say goodbye to them.

  "I am not going to see you for a long time", I told them, "I don't know how long".

  I would not be returning to Singapore. With the remainder of the money from the South African World Cup I repaid 300 of the 600 thousand dollars that I still owed Benny, the bookie from Macao. Then, while I was still in Johor, Sivarajan introduced me to an Indian-Singaporean called Mohamed Hassan.

  "Hey, why don't you use this guy", said Sivarajan, "he has some problems; some debts".

  Mohamed Hassan was renting a very posh office in Singapore's business center, Suntec Tower Three, Penthouse level. He was running a human resource business from his office but was broke and the rent was too heavy; a lot of people have luxurious offices in Singapore but borrow money to pay the rent. Mohamed was borrowing money and had an outstanding debt of about 100 thousand dollars with some loan sharks. He agreed to allow my newly rebranded company, Exclusive Sports, to operate from his office. I hired Hassan's services, bid farewell to my family and friends, and left for the UK.

  CHAPTER XV

  I am the savior

  I could not and did not want to return to Singapore, I had lost faith in the judiciary and was not prepared to spend the next five years of my life up the river so, after the World Cup in South Africa, I decided to settle in London. At first I stayed in a hotel, then I rented a flat close to the Wembley stadium, within the Indian community; I had been there several times before during my previous trips to the UK and I was more comfortable living among Indians. I paid six months rent up-front and walked into my new apartment. I got myself a subscription to Tamil cable-TV; I cannot live without Tamil entertainment and Indian food.

  Everyone thought that I was doing something fishy while in England, but I was not. When I live in a foreign country, I try not to do anything funny there. While in London, I just had an ordinary life; I would get up in the morning, get myself a cup of coffee, a newspaper, then take a jog around the Wembley stadium. As I ran, I thought about the thousands of Singaporeans who craved to catch a game in Wembley; and here I was, jogging around it like it was my home. I spotted some Tamil boys and stopped to ask them to play some football with me.

  "That sport will make us wheeze", they declined. "We'd rather play cricket".

  I patronized the betting shops around Wembley. When it comes to gambling, the UK is worse than Singapore. There are way too many betting shops and too many options to bet on: dogs, horses, roulette machines, you name it. I am not a machines gambler. I don't fuck around with machines; they can send you home without your underwear. I've wagered on dog and horse races from time to time but never really got hooked on them. The people in London's betting shops seemed to like me. I never gave them any trouble and I was always polite and respectful towards them. I respect people when they respect me. I can turn nasty if you are rude and disrespectful but I never had any problems while in the UK. I honestly don't know how most people can afford to survive in London; most of them seem to be broke. Marijuana is sold on every street corner and some guys roll joints and puff in public as if they were licensed to do so. London is boring, the British are stuck up and some of them are racist. White people are racist towards the Asians. So are the Pakistanis, who are persuaded they are British and therefore look down on the Sinhalese. They don't realize that they are nothing more than the first batch of immigrants. The Sinhalese look down on the Somalis or form gangs within their own community and fight one another. I wondered why these guys traveled all the way to the UK to form gangs and fight within their own community. They could have done that in Sri Lanka or saved their energy for a better cause and fought the Sri Lankan army.

  One morning, as I was walking towards Wembley High Road, I was addressed by four white Irish boys riding in a car. They told me that they needed to drive up to Belfast and had no money for gas. They begged me to purchase a laptop computer from them so that they could use the money to get home. I sympathized with their plight but was not too keen to buy another laptop.

  "I already have two laptops", I told them, "I don't need another one. I can give you 50 pounds to help you out though".

  I fished 50 pounds from my side pocket and gave them to the boys as a goodwill gesture. They thanked me for the money and drove off, then, after some 50 meters, they stopped their car and waited for me to walk by them again.

  "What's the best price that you can give us for this laptop?" one of them said from the car's window.

  "Look", I answered, "I had 150 pounds in my pocket and I just gave you guys 50. I need the remaining 100 pounds to get through the rest of the day".

  "Come on bud", they pleaded, "we'll give you this computer for 130 pounds".

  "Fuck it", I thought to myself, "let me help these guys out".

  I gave them another 80 pounds. They slipped the laptop inside a black bag and handed it to me. Bag in hand, I headed towards a betting shop on Wembley High Road. When I arrived I told a friend about my encounter and he smiled.

  "I bet that there is no laptop in there", he said pointing to the bag.

  "No way", I told him, "I saw the boys place the laptop right in here with my own eyes".

  I unzipped the bag and saw a small sack of onions inside.

  "Mother-fuckers tricked me into buying onions for 130 pounds", I exclaimed.

  Those were the most expensive onions that I ever bought in my entire life. My friend explained that Irish boys prey on gullible people and that a friend of his had fallen for the same trick with a mobile phone just a week before.

  "They'll switch the bag on you in the blink of an eye", he explained.

  I was taken aback by the incident. You see, in Singapore I had never witnessed white guys in the streets swindling people; it was something that I didn't know existed.

  While in London, I spent most of my evenings at the computer working on my fixes and on my betting. I watched some football - for gambling purposes only - and the news on the BBC. I've lost interest in watching football for entertainment. I'd rather wait for the end of the match and check the results than go through an entire 90-minute game; sometimes I will only watch the last ten minutes. I've followed too many football games in my life and there comes a time when your adrenalin kick comes to an end. Women often asked me how I could watch a football match for 90 full minutes and I used to think that they were ignorant about sports and could not appreciate the art of football. Now I understand that they were right. If you are not into football, you are bound to wonder why 22 idiots should run around a pitch chasing a ball for an hour and a half. During my entire stay in London I never even bothered to attend a single Premier League match at the stadium, but, when I put my money on a match, then it's a different story altogether; I'm glued to the fucking screen to see what the players are d
oing. And when they miss, I'll scorn their grandmother, their mother, their father and anybody else that comes to mind.

  The worst strikers in football are made in England; they'll cost a club 10 to 20 million pounds and they can miss a goal from two or three yards. English strikers score 40 goals during one season and less than five in the following season. Darren Bent and Andy Carroll are two fine examples; England will never win the World Cup while I'm alive, that much I gather.

  After the World Cup in South Africa, I continued to work with Dan. He knew that I was on the run, was OK with it and was now facing my same problem: after the arrests of Dino and Admir in Croatia, he dared not travel to Europe for fear of being apprehended. Despite our troubles with the law, we were very busy and were moving a lot of money. We were running left and right, organizing tournaments and international friendly matches here and there. Around that time I thought of buying some property: I needed 500 thousand dollars but only had 300 thousand. I asked Dan for help and, incredibly enough, he accepted without flinching.

  "My partners are in prison right now and I'm holding on to their money", he said. "I can lend 200 thousand to you".

  Despite our differences, Dan was proving to be a real friend.

  The appeal for my assault charges was due to come up in Singapore on July 13th, 2010, and I, of course, wasn't going to attend. The court had assigned a very good judge to my case, Justice VK Rajah, the best one that I could hope to get: a very neutral man. Judge Rajah doesn't take sides and will let everyone know who is the boss, so when you stand before him, you better make sure your socks are pulled up. Yet at that time, leaving Singapore seemed to be my only way out. London had become my hub and I was busy moving to and fro. I was even stopped at the UK border for a random drug check once. The officer read my rights and asked me if I had swallowed or was carrying any illicit substance.

  "If you are caught with drugs on you or in your luggage", he said, "you will be immediately transferred to the custody suite".

  "There is no fucking suite in custody", I laughed.

  The officer then took me for an X-ray screening but nothing came up and I was allowed to go. They had no idea that I was in a completely different line of business.

  In the Spring of 2010, Mega called me to let me know that he would be traveling to Rovaniemi, Finland, to fix some matches with the Zambian players from Rovaniemi Palloseura (RoPS) football club, to whom we had left money at the end of the previous season. RoPS had been relegated and was now playing in the Ykkonen league, the Finnish second division. Mega said that he would be traveling to Finland with two other Indians: a very skinny Muslim guy called K-Junior and a really fat Indian-Singaporean named Mahina. Mega was in business with a new boss whose name I do not know. I spoke to him over the telephone one or two weeks before his departure.

  "So, Mega", I said, "you are going to Finland to do these RoPS games. Do you have a boss?"

  "Yes, I have a boss", he replied.

  "Can your boss play up to one million dollars?" I asked.

  "No, my boss cannot play up to one million dollars", he admitted.

  "My boss can play up to a million dollars", I concluded, "you think about it and get back to me".

  He never did.

  "What a fucker", I thought. "I put him on a business class flight, brought him to Finland, paid for his expenses and handed 20 thousand dollars to the boys out of my own pockets to ensure their allegiance, then, when I make a business offer, he declines and chooses to do business with another guy. Mother-fucker".

  Mega told me that his boss was going to pay him 30 thousand dollars per game; I would have agreed to pay him 40 thousand. His refusal put a strain on our relationship and I stopped calling him. I was pissed off but didn't really make an issue out of it.

  Mega and his associates landed in Finland, hooked up with the Zambians and with some Georgian players from RoPS and began fixing matches with them. Their first fix ended 3-0 in favor of RoPS, as did their second. Then, on the third 3-0, there was a fuck up. The boss decided not to pay the RoPS players because he had asked for 4-0 and claimed that he had not made any money from the match because of the missing goal. Amateurs. The RoPS players and were very unhappy and I sensed that the moment had come to reclaim my investment. I immediately sent Anthony over to Finland to track down the Zambians and take over the Finnish club for us.

  "Anthony", I explained, "look for and talk to any of the black players from RoPS. See if they want to do business".

  I booked an airplane ticket for Anthony and off he went. He flew to Rovaniemi and randomly approached one of the African boys.

  "Are you from Zambia?" he asked.

  "Yes, I am", the player answered.

  Anthony called me to ask for more details.

  "I'm with one of the Zambians", he said, "who should I ask for?"

  "I met two of the Zambian players last year", I told him. "They will know that my name is Wilson. Tell them that we met at the Hotel Cumulus. Ask them whether they remember me".

  "Can you explain more?" Anthony insisted.

  "Tell them that I gave them ten thousand dollars each", I said. "Fuck, just put him on the phone".

  Anthony handed his telephone to the player.

  "I am the guy whom you gave the money to", the Zambian player confirmed.

  It was Musonda, the golden-haired Zambian RoPS player that I had met at the end of the previous season.

  "Do you remember me?" I asked.

  "Yes, I remember".

  "Good".

  Anthony could not discuss business directly with Musonda because he was with his wife, so he recorded Musonda's telephone number and left.

  In late July 2010, after contacting Dan and obtaining his financial support for the business in Finland, I hopped on a flight from London to Helsinki. Before I reclaimed my connections with RoPS, however, I approached FC Haka, a club that played in Veikkausliiga, the Finnish first division.

  Nowadays football equals gambling plus live betting and betting companies provide a good portion of the money needed to keep the whole circus afloat. The Finnish first division is called Veikkausliiga because Veikkaus, the national betting agency, sponsors the top league and each club that competes in it. In Singapore, it is the State-run gambling company, Singapore Pools, that funds the S-League and the same is true in other countries. When FIFA says that live betting is destroying football, they know full well that the main sponsors of the beautiful game include many major betting companies.

  The reason I approached Veikkausliiga's FC Haka is because I wanted to find a team that we could sponsor in the same way that Bryan had sponsored the Swiss club FC Chiasso a few years before. I have to admit that my approach was neither carefully planned nor professional; it was a bit amateurish. I spoke to Juha, the club's Managing Director.

  "Look here", I explained, "I want to sponsor your team with about half a million euro. We will bring five or six players here to complete your lineup: if they are successful, we will sell them to other clubs for a profit".

  Juha said that he would submit my proposal to the club's management. He also informed me that another Finnish club, Tampere United FC, was going through serious financial difficulties. After leaving Juha, I went to Tampere and made the same proposal to the Tampere United FC management.

  While waiting for a reply from FC Haka and Tampere United I took a flight to Lapland, the north of Finland, at the edge of the Arctic circle. I landed in Rovaniemi, where I checked in at the Cumulus hotel. I rounded up the RoPS players in my room before their July 18th match against FC Viikingit and asked them to lose.

  "No", they replied, showing a good dose of confidence. "We can win this match".

  "OK", I said. "Go and win then".

  I decided to take my chances and gave the players an advance payment of 25 thousand euro to win the match. The RoPS players took the money but played a horrible game and were thrashed by Viikingit 3-0. I lost about 200 thousand dollars on the match. That evening I met with Musonda an
d recovered the advance payment that I had left with him.

  The boys that Zeddy had sent to Finland from his Zambian academy were a bunch of hopeless footballers; they were not class-1 horses. I was a better player than they were when I was 20 years old. Some people are born with talent but, if you are not, you must come to terms with the fact that your technical ability will not appear overnight. There are many talent scouts out there that organize youth tournaments around the world: the Under-17 World Cup; the Under-20 World Cup and so on. If they missed you during the Under-17, then you have to make it by the Under-20, otherwise, it's too late. Players who compete at the highest level are discovered even earlier than that: at 16 or 17 years of age. Somebody spotted Lionel Messi when he was barely 11; that talent scout must have had a very sharp eye. But if you are beyond 20 years of age and playing in the Finnish second division, going to Bayern Munich or some other top-class club is something that you can only dream of. You'll have to come to terms with the fact that, throughout your career, you'll be paid at best one or two thousand dollars per month. The highest you may get is perhaps three thousand.

  In their next match, RoPS was playing Tampereen Pallo-Veikot (TPV), another Tampere-based club; a really pathetic team. This time around I asked the RoPS players for a total of four goals, two in each half, but they only managed to deliver three: TPV vs RoPS, 0-3. I needed four goals total, I didn't care what team scored the goals, but these stupid fuckers hadn't even managed to concede a single goal to their opponents. Once again, the boys had to return my deposit. I was beginning to understand why the other fixers had left Rovaniemi in despair.

  Sometimes, when I have trouble getting the picture across to players, I try to put it in very basic, simple terms.

  "Jesus came to Earth and said: 'I am the Savior'", I tell them. "He walked on water, brought the dead back to life and yet the mother-fuckers didn't believe him; they nailed him to a cross and killed him. So why should you believe me? I'm no savior, but I can pay you a lot of money. Try to listen to what I'm saying and you'll become rich".