The first two matches of the Copa Cordoba went well; everything was running smoothly. Then came the December 17th, 2010, Argentina vs Bolivia match. The biggest fuck-up of my match-fixing career after the fake Togo match was about to go on stage.
Zeekay's Hungarian referee, a guy called Lengyel, was officiating the game in Cordoba while Dan was barking orders from his home in Singapore.
"We are going Under on this match", Dan told Zeekay. "I only want one goal in the last two or three minutes or during injury time".
Referees nowadays all use headsets to speak to their assistants on the opposite side of the green. We too decided to use them for the first time in Argentina. Back then, you could not find that kind of equipment on the market; only football officials could purchase the headsets. But we were way ahead of the game. Kosta, Dan's Bulgarian associate, had come up with the headset idea and had managed to obtain the microphones and radio terminals through his contacts in some eastern European FA. During the matches, each official had his own frequency: the ref had his; the linesmen had theirs; and we had ours.
When the bookmakers opened the odds for the Argentina vs Bolivia game, I noticed that the volumes were way smaller than I had expected, so I called Dan.
"Dan", I said, "don't do anything crazy, I know that the volumes are small but I have a bigger tournament coming up in Argentina involving River Plate and Boca Juniors in just two-weeks' time. We are going to have our referees in that tournament, so you just be cautious".
The first half of the match was played without particular worries, then, during the second half, Argentina netted a goal that looked legitimate. The players and the fans jumped from their seats and were already celebrating when Zeekay, who was sitting in the stands with his radio control in hand, decided to intervene. He spoke to the match officials through the headsets.
"Disallow the goal! Disallow the goal!" he shouted.
Mother-fucker.
Two Bolivian defenders were standing between the Argentinian player and the Bolivian goal when the ball was passed; there was no way that he could have been offside. One would have had to be partially blind to think that he was. Still, the linesman lifted his flag and the goal was disallowed.
"Why the fuck did he do that for?" I thought. "A goal is a goal. Just let it be".
When the 90 minutes of regular time ended there were still no goals scored and the match continued into injury time. Argentina didn't look like it was going to score so Lengyel let the match play and play and play until the 11th minute of stoppage-time, when he finally awarded a dubious penalty in favor of the home side. The Argentinians managed to score the penalty and seal their 1-0 victory. After the final whistle blew, all hell broke loose. One of the Bolivian players was so frustrated that he ran up to Lengyel and spit right in his face. Everyone was pointing accusing fingers at the Hungarian match official.
"This is the same mother-fucker who destroyed our game in Bolivia at the Copa Aerosur", growled the Bolivians. "Same guy".
The Bolivians were furious and Lengyel had to be escorted out of the pitch by the police.
To make things worse, the Argentina FA president was sitting in the stands watching the match. Nobody was aware of match-fixing in Latin America until then but, after that single game, the entire continent was woken from their innocent slumber. The TV was airing the offside goal again and again.
"What the fuck is going on here?" people demanded to know.
They might have thought that they were brazen but, in truth, Dan and Zeekay were just two fucking morons. The match was aired live on television and the FA president was sitting right there in the stands. You don't fuck with a match that involves the home team. For a single game with a small fucking volume - the Copa Cordoba was worth a miserly two thousand dollars per click - Dan and Zeekay had destroyed the business that I had set up for them. Until that day, our network had been expanding in Latin America: Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador; all had gone smoothly and nothing had been exposed until that damned Argentina match. Dan and the others were all grown-ups with extensive match-fixing experience. You can occasionally lose a match, so be it, it can happen from time to time; you lose one, never mind, you'll recover in the following game. There may be times when you have to lose even after your referee has awarded three penalties because the players miss all three. I remember a match between Singapore and Thailand during one of the King's Cups. We had the referee on our side and had placed our money on Over. The ref awarded a penalty in favor of Thailand but the player missed it so he granted him a second chance; the player missed again. After the match, I remember speaking to the ref.
"Even if I had made him retake the penalty five times", he told me, "he would have missed all five".
It's stupid to think that you will never lose; no matter how much effort you put into your fixing, the ball is still round. I was furious with Dan; and he was continuing to go behind my back, fixing games with my runners Mohamed Hassan and Anthony without giving me my share. On Christmas eve, Dan and Mohamed Hassan took Kuwait, Zambia and North Korea to Egypt to play a number of international friendly matches without so much as a phone call. They even brought Ibrahim along to do business there. Why should I divide my profits into five shares when these fuckers steal my contacts and men without even letting me know? I began questioning the convenience of my business relationship with Dan and his syndicate.
At the end of 2010, Dan organized another New Year's function in Singapore and invited all of his associates: referees, players and runners. I could not attend, of course, because I was on the run. I received a call from Jean, the Haiti national team's goalkeeper.
"Can you get me a ticket?" he asked.
Jean had already called Dan to ask him for one.
"Fuck you", Dan had replied, "You go and buy your own ticket. You come here and I'll give you a hotel room and food, but the airfare; I'm not going to pay for that".
Jean thought of calling me next and I decided to help him; we had met a few times during my stay in London so I got my agent to issue him a ticket to Singapore from the UK via Frankfurt, Germany. Jean, however, didn't want to travel on such a lengthy flight, so he called Dan again.
"Dan" he asked, "I don't want to fly via Frankfurt. Can you get me a direct flight? Please".
I thought that Jean was already on the airplane when Dan called me.
"What the fuck is going on with Jean?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" I said. "I bought him a ticket to Singapore".
"Why didn't you get him a direct flight from London to Singapore?Why the fuck did you get him to stop over in Frankfurt?"
"My agent told me that it was the only available flight", I replied. "It's New Year's".
Dan finally gave in to Jean's request, had another ticket issued and Jean was in Singapore in time for New Year's. Since I couldn't go, I asked Armando to fly there and attend the function in my stead. The boys all met at a Singapore hotel; Kosta, Zeekay, Javier, Anthony and Alassane were there, while Admir and Dino were still busy picking their bone with authorities in Croatia. It was like a mafia meeting with all the bosses and their runners.
A few days later, I got an unsettling call from my travel agent in Singapore.
"Wilson", she said, "I received a strange telephone call today. The person at the other end of the line said: 'I am calling from the Hong Kong airport. We would need to confirm the passport details of Wilson Raj Perumal. What passport is he using? We need his passport number'. I, of course, didn't give out any information about you".
My travel agent knew Anthony, Danny and all the other guys, but hadn't recognized the voice on the other end of the line.
"Wilson", she warned, "be careful. Somebody is after you".
After hanging up the telephone, I sat down and thought about who it could be but couldn't come up with an answer.
CHAPTER XVII
The soup got fucked
In early February 2011, I received an unexpected call from Dan.
"Today some
thing happened", he sounded excited. "Your share is about 60 thousand. I will do the calculations tonight and will give you your part of the profits".
"Which matches?" I asked.
"Napoli vs Sampdoria 4-0 and Brescia vs Bari 2-0".
"Fuck", I was shocked. "You've got the Italian Serie A?"
"Sampdoria said that they could only give me 2-0 and the final result was 4-0", complained Dan. "If they had told me earlier, I would have made big money. And Bari, if they had given me one more goal, I would have won both handicap and Over, double bell".
"The Italian top league, this fucker is playing real big", I thought.
Dan explained that he hadn't fixed the Italian matches; the players' agents had come to him.
"Can you place a 600 thousand euro bet for us?" they had asked.
He was ecstatic.
"Fuck", he joyfully announced, "I don't even have to pay the cost for fixing anymore. I don't need to pay the players, all I have to do is bet 600 thousand euro for them. I can do that in three minutes; one 25 thousand euro click every three seconds, then I can continue to wager my own money for the rest of the match".
For some reason Dan decided to give me a share for each of the two Italian matches; something he had never done in all the years that I had known him. I had become a shareholder in Dan's syndicate during the South African World Cup but, apart from the warm-up friendlies, this was the first money that I received from the syndicate for a match that I was not directly involved in. Dan issued the payment in Singapore and I got somebody to go and pick up the money. That's how we usually functioned; the day after a match, I would go to Dan's home or wherever he asked me to meet his runners and the money would be there.
"Go to this place", he would say, "somebody will be there for you with your cash".
Now that I was on the run from Singapore and that Dan couldn't come to Europe anymore, I used my friends back home to pick up the money for me; very rarely did we use a bank, everything was always settled in cash. Dan would sometimes rely on the services of an illegal remittance company that could deliver up to 100 thousand dollars per day in any part of the world. It was common practice among match-fixers; when I did business with Ah Kang, our money transactions worked in the same way, without the help of a bank. Getting money from China to Singapore was never a problem, there were plenty of legal and illegal remittance operators. You simply had to call them.
"Where do I collect my money?"
"Go and see this lady in this shopping center at Boon Lay and pick up your money", they would say. "This is her number. You call her when you get there and she will come to you".
I'd call the lady.
"Where do we meet?"
"McDonald's in five minutes?"
"OK".
The lady would show up holding a bag filled with cash. We would walk to my car together, count the money, shake hands; end of story. Everything was paid in cash, irrespective of the amount.
After years in this business, I am in the habit of scrolling the FIFA website to be updated on international fixtures. A few days after receiving the money from Dan, as I was doing my homework on who is playing who, I came across two international friendly matches that drew my attention: Bolivia vs Latvia and Estonia vs Bulgaria. Both games were going to be played in Antalya, Turkey, on the same day. Antalya is a very popular venue for friendly matches played in January or early February because teams can travel there and avoid the cold European winter. According to my experience, these were very strange fixtures and I was aware that Dan had organized some matches in Antalya before. I knew that Bolivia didn't have enough money to travel within Latin America, let alone fly to another continent. Who would watch them play? Who would buy the television rights for their matches? It didn't make any sense; the name 'Anthony' was written all over these games. Bulgaria vs Estonia also had a sinister ring to it. I had been informed that Anthony was busy traveling on behalf of Dan - he had even approached the Finnish FA at one point - and that he had built solid connections in Estonia.
"Dan is giving me a share for Italy while he fucks me over in Turkey", I reckoned.
As I stared at the fixtures on my computer screen, I picked up the telephone and rang up Sivarajan.
"Sivarajan, look", I said, "there is this game coming up: Bolivia vs Latvia. I am very sure that this is the work of Anthony. Prepare funds for this match, we will send Murugan to Turkey and, if we see the referees wearing headsets, then we will be 100 percent sure that Dan is involved. If he is, we will go for total goals, Over; Dan will never go Under, even if you place a gun to his head. Oh, and Siva", I expressly advised him, "do not speak about this to anyone".
The very next day I received a call from Dan.
"This mother-fucker Sivarajan, fucking bastard", Dan was screaming. "He's going around telling people that the Antalya matches are going to be fixed and that the refs will be wearing headsets".
"Did he really, Dan?" I asked innocently. "Who did he go and tell?"
"Fucker said that I will do Over, 100 percent", he whined. "You tell this bastard that I will go Under if I please".
"Sure".
"You tell this bastard", shouted Dan, "that I will make this game end 0-0, OK? I can kill the bastard on this match, you know that I can. You go and tell him".
I called Sivarajan.
"Siva, you fucking incontinent bastard", I roared. "You chee-bye in the mouth. Did I not tell you very clearly to keep the information to yourself? Did I speak to you in Hebrew or something? Which part of my statements did you fail to understand, you fucker?"
I fucked Sivarajan inside out. He kept mum at first then began cursing Rais.
"I only told Rais", he claimed.
Mohamed Rais was like a prostitute. One minute he would be with you and the next he would switch sides. If he needed five or ten thousand dollars, he would trot to Dan with some information and Dan would give him some cash in return; he was Dan's pooch.
After hanging up on Sivarajan, I called Murugan.
"Murugan", I instructed, "go to Antalya and check if the ref is using a headset. If you recognize the referee, you let me know and keep your eyes peeled for penalties. The moment you sense something, ring me up and we will hit them from the back".
On February 9th, 2011, the show was on in Antalya, Turkey: Latvia vs Bolivia and Estonia vs Bulgaria. Murugan landed there before the kick off. He knew Dan and all the referees that Dan used; after all, Murugan had worked with Dan and Bryan for a good five years. He called me to brief me on the situation.
"Latvia vs Bolivia, the referee is a Bosnian guy", said Murugan. "Estonia vs Bulgaria has a Hungarian referee, Lengyel. But no one knows where the second match will be played".
I knew it. The Bosnian match official was the same referee that I had used in Bahrain vs Iran in 2009 while Lengyel was the same official that we had designated for that dreadful Argentina vs Bolivia match. Both were Dan's men.
"OK, Murugan", I explained, "just go to the stadium, sit in a corner and don't show your face".
I was ready to bet on the first match, Bolivia vs Latvia. What would Dan ask? Over 2.5? Over 3.5? I knew that, despite his threats, Dan would never go for Under. I had found a financier to place my bets because I was temporarily short on currency. I knew that Dan was capable of completing all of his betting before the game even started; the job was already done on his side.
As Bolivia vs Latvia kicked off, punters in Singapore were hitting so hard on the match that the odds were rapidly shrinking. I cursed Sivarajan and his big mouth. I decided to bet on four goals scored. The progression of the match was unusual, even for Dan's standard; the goals were coming too quickly; one penalty, two penalties, three penalties; by the 60th minute the score was already 2-1 and there was still a long way to go. I expected at least one more goal which never came and I lost my money. Hoping to recover from the loss in the second match, Estonia vs Bulgaria, I called Murugan.
"Locate one more stadium. There is a second match, Estonia vs Bulg
aria, one more match somewhere in Antalya today".
"No boss", replied Murugan, "nobody here knows where the second match will be played".
The second game was going to be played on the same fucking pitch as the first, only an hour later. At times I am amazed at my own people's lack of intelligence. We didn't bet on the second match, which ended 2-2, four penalties, four goals, Over 3.5. Dan's two refs had awarded a total of seven penalties in a single fucking day.
I later had the chance to obtain information on a telephone conversation between Dan and Zeekay that had occurred before the matches. During the chat, Dan had told Zeekay that he had inside information about UEFA doubting the regularity of the Antalya games before they had even kicked off. He then went on to explain to Zeekay that he was thinking of calling the operation off and placing Turkish referees to officiate the matches. Instead, he went on with his plan and told his refs to award rapid-fire penalties. It was as if you see the police waiting for you in front of a bank and you still try to go ahead and rob it. Fucking stupid. Had I been in control, I would have probably told the refs to wave a double yellow and send off a player in each match. It would have minimized the burden on my match officials, protected their interest and avoided the sudden destruction of their careers. I would have settled for 0-0 in the first half and a couple of goals in the second. It may not be as profitable as four goals; so be it, it's a business loss. But Dan was too fucking stubborn to change his plans and went ahead with his decision to go Over on both matches.
In the conversation between Dan and Zeekay, Dan had proceded to blame me for UEFA taking notice of the games, claiming that I was responsible for tipping them off.
Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer Page 38