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

by Wilson Raj Perumal

  "You tell them that you are Wilson Raj Perumal", I instructed Ravin Raj. "You are in El Salvador and you didn't fix the Togo match".

  Ravin Raj called and spoke to a woman from 'The New Paper'.

  "I am Wilson Raj Perumal", he said, "I organize matches, international friendlies, I don't fix them".

  But the cat was out of the bag; in Bahrain, Singapore and Zimbabwe alike, where the local FA was probing and had produced a report with my name in it that was picked up by the local Zimbabwean papers. I decided to send a follow-up e-mail to some of the journalists who were writing about me.

  "How do you conduct your investigations?" read the message. "You're only hearing one party. Yes, the players are saying this and that but you should first hear the other party before drawing a conclusion. Why don't you guys stop this investigation and spend the money you're using on it to beef up your economy or on education. That way at least your people can benefit from it".

  Too bad, if Bahrain and Zimbabwe had kept the matter in the closet, the whole thing would have just faded away in a matter of days. They should have covered up the whole incident like the Thailand FA had done. My African referees had been all over the King's Cup but not one article about them had appeared on the internet; they had suppressed everything. That's how it should have been. I mean, you don't expose your own people's corruption to the entire world; you should try to put a lid over a potential scandal. After all, the reputation of your own FA is also at stake.

  Being in the spotlight was uncomfortable but didn't prevent me from getting on with my business. By the end of October 2010 we were busy fixing the Torneo Hexagonal Sub-20 in Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela. We had flown Nicaragua, Ecuador, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago and Cameroon there to participate in the competition. The Venezuela FA was quite happy with the package but, by then, following the incident in Costa Rica, rumors had begun to spread about Exclusive Sports. When we tried to get Yasser to travel to Venezuela with the Nicaraguan delegation, the Nicaraguans declined and contacted their Venezuelan counterpart.

  "This guy is not part of our delegation", they pointed out.

  The Venezuelan tournament didn't go well at all; it was a total loss. Our referees were warm and ready but there was no betting on the matches, making us incur a loss of about 400 thousand dollars.

  Around that time I received a call from Murugan.

  "Hey Wilson", he said, "I just spoke to Abu Bakar from Sierra Leone, he told me that Anthony called him because he is organizing a tournament in Bolivia in mid-November and needs referees for it. Abu Bakar asked me if I could lend him ten thousand dollars to throw on the matches".

  "Fuck" I thought. "Anthony told me that the Bolivian deal fell through. What the fuck is going on?"

  I was supposed to be a shareholder in Dan's syndicate but I was not being informed on the matches that they did and now I reckoned that Anthony too was turning his back on me. I discussed the matter with Murugan.

  "Dan can turn friends into foes", warned Murugan. "He is a very bad, dangerous fellow. He can turn you into enemies and still be friends with both of you; he is very capable of that".

  Dan's questions about Anthony's trip to Bolivia were beginning to make sense. My doubts were confirmed when Mega called to inform me that Anthony had indeed sealed a deal with the Bolivian FA, but through his own company, Footy Media International. Anthony had called Mega to retrieve Dan's telephone number and had let the information slip; together with Dan, he had managed to organize a youth tournament in Bolivia scheduled for November: the Copa Aerosur Under-20. The two had recruited a Burkina Faso referee through the offices of Ibrahim and a Sierra Leone referee through the mediation of Abu Bakar, just as Murugan had suggested.

  You see, this is a dirty business and people will undercut you as soon as they have the chance to but, to say the truth, I did not expect Anthony to stab me in the back. I now realized that introducing him to Dan during the World Cup in South Africa had been a huge blunder. Anthony had traveled throughout Latin America at my expense; he had learned my trade and eaten my bread then had brought my business directly to Dan. What a mother-fucker. A few days later I spoke to Sivarajan who told me that Dan had sought to justify his actions with him.

  "Anthony brought the business to me", Dan told Sivarajan, "I had the right to take it".

  The mother-fucker knew full well that I had sent Anthony to Bolivia and that I had taught him all the tricks of the trade. Now he was pretending that Anthony had brought the business to him on a silver platter just for his taking. Dan had shown that he had no business ethics; I was his partner and you don't fuck your partner. If you do, then obviously your associate is going to fuck you back. The bottom line was that Dan was a crook and so was I; and when two crooks clash, either one can have the upper hand. We needed just to sit and wait to see who would have the last laugh.

  By the end of October 2010, I was back in Finland to hail the first 100 thousand euro for Tampere United that were arriving from Singapore. I was bitter about the way things were progressing with Dan and Anthony, so I only gave Tampere 50 thousand euro and had no remorse in keeping the other 50 thousand for myself. All in all, the Tampere sponsorship deal was supposed to be one million but I had quoted Dan 1.5 million. 500 thousand would be going into my own pockets.

  "This is a fucking chicken from which you can take the golden egg, slowly", I told Dan. "They want 1.5 million, give it to them".

  You may wonder why I always went back to Dan, even after he fucked me up and betrayed me over and over. I guess it was because he was the easiest guy to do business with and could always find the money to finance my fixes; all I needed to do was call him.

  "Dan, I need 300 thousand for this tournament".

  The money would be ready on the following day. Dan knew the business inside out. If I were in Singapore, it would have been easy to find someone else: I would have sat at a table with a financier, drawn a blueprint and showed him what needed to be done, how much it would cost and how much we would profit from the venture; no problem. But I was staying overseas and had no choice but to go back to Dan; to somebody who knew the nature of the business. Dan knew exactly how much money could be wagered on a single match and was willing to buy my story and invest 1.5 million on Tampere United because he knew that he could win that amount back within a month's time. But Dan was also short-sighted when it came to making money. He needed a way to launder his profits and I provided him with one.

  "Why don't you move in as a director of Exclusive Sports?" I proposed to him in November. "You become the director, you declare 200 thousand income tax and then buy some property and nobody will suspect any wrongdoing. If you don't pay your taxes, eventually someone will come knocking at your door".

  Dan agreed and became the sole director of Exclusive Sports.

  November 18th, 2010, was a triple blast day: Egypt vs Australia in Cairo, Ecuador vs Venezuela in Quito, Ecuador, and Egypt Under-23 vs Moldova Under-23, also in Cairo.

  I had already booked Ibrahim for the match in Quito and another African ref for the Under-23 match in Cairo. Dan suggested that we use a Bulgarian official that he knew for the remaining game.

  "It's a good idea", I agreed. "We can use him for the Egypt vs Australia match".

  I had sent Mohamed Hassan to Cairo to negotiate a deal with the Egypt FA. Hassan didn't know much about football but had the right personality; I had called him to brief him on his mission and to reassure him about the obviousness of the task.

  "You go there and meet my guy in the Egypt FA", I explained. "Just tell him that you are Exclusive Sports. They know the company already. I'll call him to anticipate that you are on your way there; he'll be waiting for you. Just try to convince the FA to use our African referees in the Egyptian league and the Bulgarian ref in the Egypt vs Australia game".

  The Egypt FA turned down our offer to provide African match officials in their league but agreed to use our Bulgarian ref in their game against Australia. Hassan had done a good job and was ab
le to settle his outstanding debts with the Singapore loan sharks to whom he owed money. Within a few months' time working for me he had made nearly 200 thousand dollars, a sum that I had never paid to any of my workers before.

  Dan's Bulgarian referee was a man called Anton, whom Kosta had provided. Anton had been suspended by UEFA on the previous year for awarding four penalty kicks during a Canada vs Macedonia friendly; the match had triggered warnings due to its highly irregular and suspicious betting patterns. I mean, a referee should know that awarding four penalties can give rise to suspicion, especially if all the wagers on the match point to three goals or above. Dan had been very unhappy with Anton's performance on that occasion.

  "After the match", he told me, "we fucked Kosta and his referee. I was screaming at them: 'Why the fuck did you give away so many penalties? If the player misses, just say that the goalkeeper moved before the kick and retake the penalty'. But neither of them were intelligent enough to understand".

  Somehow, Anton had been cleared of wrongdoing and brought back to officiate further official fixtures. Dan spoke to him before the Egypt game.

  "Anton", he warned, "you just came back from your suspension, so don't do anything funny. Just wait for the right time".

  Egypt was very picky about their referees; at first, when they saw Anton, they complained: "This guy looks a little too fat".

  We insisted and finally Anton was designated to officiate the match and the game went according to plans. The Bulgarian ref awarded a single penalty in the final minutes of Egypt vs Australia, which ended 3-0 in favor of the Pharaohs. After the match I called Dan to find out what my share of the win was.

  "I bet one million dollars on the game", he said, "your share is 200 thousand dollars".

  "What the fuck do you mean?" I asked. "You only threw one million?"

  "This is your quota", Dan insisted, "200 thousand".

  "You must be joking", I said.

  Dan was not being honest with me, he was taking me for a ride; I didn't need to be a rocket scientist to know that. My suspicion that Dan's bets were larger than what he was telling me - making my share smaller - had become an absolute certainty. But whatever he took from me, I had ways and means to take it back. I had shared the information on Egypt's match with a friend, telling him to throw 500 thousand dollars on it for me.

  "Are you very sure?" my friend asked. "500 thousand?"

  "Yes, don't worry", I reassured him, "the final whistle will not come before three goals are scored".

  When we fix a match, we often read our associates their rights: "Don't pass it on to anybody else. Anything you say can and will be held against you".

  Usually, the fuckers will pass the information on to other punters nonetheless.

  I've been in this business long enough to know which match you can share and which you cannot share. Whether sharing is convenient really depends on the volumes offered for the fixture. For example: Egypt vs Australia; big volume; one click on the website is 20-over-thousand dollars; that, you can share. My friend, whom I had shared the information with, had managed to throw half a million dollars on the match within five minutes from the beginning of the second half, and here was Dan, with his portentous betting firepower, wagering for the entire 90 minutes and claiming that he had only thrown a million.

  "You were betting for the whole duration of the game and threw a mere million?" I repeated to Dan. "How often do you have a referee that you fuck, eat and sleep with? And he even put his own money on this match, didn't he?"

  "Wilson", Dan cut me short, "this is your share, if you don't want it..."

  "Why did you play so little?" I was enraged. "Only one million?"

  "We only play one million per match", Dan insisted.

  There was no way for me to check but I knew that Dan could easily place three million dollars on such a match.

  "OK, you want to play this game with me?" I thought. "Wait till I catch you red handed. Then I'll fuck you up".

  On that same day, Egypt Under-23 played against Moldova Under-23 in Cairo. The Moldovan team was under Dan's control and the match ended 5-0 in favor of Egypt. After the game, Dan claimed that he hadn't made any money from it. He asserted that the African ref that I had provided hadn't gotten his message clearly during the half-time break and had fucked up the result.

  Our third match of the day was Ecuador vs Venezuela. I flew from London to Madrid and from Madrid to Quito, Ecuador, where the match was to be played. Ibrahim was there to officiate the game so, before kick off, we sat down for a chat.

  "Hey Ibrahim", I asked, "I thought I saw you a month ago in a match between Bolivia and Venezuela. Were you officiating that game?"

  "Yeah, I was the referee", he replied.

  "How come you didn't tell me?" I asked him.

  "I didn't know that you were unaware", he sounded surprised. "I thought that you were part of the group too".

  So did I.

  I gave Ibrahim instructions as commanded by Dan to provide a total of three goals in Ecuador vs Venezuela. This was the very last international friendly match that I organized. In the first five minutes of the game, Ecuador scored two goals, then, by the end of the first half, the third goal was netted and Ibrahim's work was done. It was an easy job for him; final score, 4-1 in favor of Ecuador.

  After the match, I dispatched Ibrahim to Bolivia to see what exactly was going on with the Copa Aerosur that Dan and Anthony had organized behind my back. I told Ibrahim to call me and relay any information that he could gather on the games. After spending a few days in Bolivia without being able to find out any intricate details about the tournament, I let Ibrahim go and he flew back to his home in Niamey, Niger, via Paris.

  By then I was seriously questioning Dan's honesty so, whenever there was a tournament to organize, if the cost was 400 thousand dollars, I would quote Dan for half a million and keep the surplus for myself. Overall, we were very busy and our money was moving. Our runners trotted frantically to and fro carrying bagfuls of cash all around the globe. Mohamed Hassan, Sivarajan's friend that I had recruited in Johor, Malaysia, after the World Cup, was one of them. I trusted Hassan blindly. So much that I had given him the password to my Exclusive Sports e-mail account and was a little too outspoken with him about the money that I was skimming from Dan. Finally, as he came to realize that Dan was the man with the cash, Hassan chose to betray me. He ran over to Dan and told him that the figures that I was relating to him were not correct and gave him the password to my e-mail account. Ratting on me bought Hassan a special place in Dan's hierarchy; he became Dan's trusted associate and began working stably for him. When Sivarajan called to inform me about Hassan's betrayal it was too late. Dan had gone through my e-mails and had gathered plenty of information about my deals around the globe. I tried not to worry too much about the circumstance but couldn't help thinking that Anthony's and Hassan's betrayals were grim presages of a tumult to come.

  In late November, Mohamed Rais flew to Finland from Singapore carrying 400 thousand euro for the second Tampere sponsorship installment. I met him in Helsinki. Dan had instructed him to meet the Tampere United CEO Deniz face to face and hand the money directly into his hands; he just didn't trust me anymore.

  "Look here", I said to Rais when we met, "you keep 20 thousand euro of this money for yourself and, if you keep your mouth shut, I will keep sending money your way. If Dan asks, you met Deniz in person and gave him the money".

  Rais agreed to dance to my tune. 20 thousand euro is a lot of money for a taxi driver. In spite of his modest income, Rais was spending money like the Prince of Dubai. He often abused alcohol and would splurge on women; he was a regular sex tourist at Batam island in Indonesia. I took Dan's money from Rais' hands and sent him back to Singapore.

  When I met Tampere's CEO Deniz, I gave him 250 thousand euro and pocketed the remaining 130 thousand. I knew that Dan was fucking me up so my conscience didn't bother me one iota. I considered the money a payback for the extra that Dan had pocketed
on the matches that he hadn't informed me about.

  The deal with Tampere United was that they would take our money and allow us to place five or six players in their team's lineup.

  "Your players have to be good", Deniz clarified. "Only then will I field them. They have to be better than our players. There is no use signing a player who is below the standard of our local boys".

  "OK, fair enough", I answered.

  I was confident that we could recruit players in other European countries to fit the ticket. After all, Dan had a strong European network and it shouldn't have been a problem for him to find five or six decent players. I shook hands with Deniz and returned to London.

  In early December 2010, the Copa Cordoba International Sub-20 in Argentina was about to begin and we needed to find trustworthy referees to officiate its matches.

  "I need six match officials", I told Dan. "Give me two reliable refs and four linesmen".

  Dan found the officials in Hungary and Bulgaria and dispatched them to Argentina. The refs were escorted by a new member of Dan's syndicate, a Hungarian man called Zeekay. Zeekay was very influential in Hungary; he was the boss and nothing budged there if he wasn't involved. Zeekay was already betting through an on-line account with decent volumes before he met Dan. At first, Dan's European partners had refused to introduce Zeekay to him but, when they realized that it was impossible to operate in Hungary without him, they chose to bring him into the picture. After the arrests of Admir and Dino, Zeekay had become a major player in the syndicate and was designated by Dan to run the show in Argentina. I was, of course, in charge of logistics, which I handled from my home in London. I sent Sivarajan to Argentina to run errands for me and, the moment Zeekay and the refs touched down in Buenos Aires, Siva put them on a domestic flight to Cordoba where a hotel was already booked for them. Everything was ready and my boys were running the show for me.