[Breaking news] Small fry caught - big fish still at large

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Singapore police arrest 14 in football match-fixing probe

By Jeremy Grant, Financial Times, in Singapore

September 18, 2013

Singapore’s police have arrested 14 people in an unprecedented crackdown on alleged soccer match-fixing, seven months after the EU identified the city-state as the base for a sprawling network of well-financed match-fixers that have manipulated hundreds of games in Asia and Europe for years.

The move is a sign that Singapore is moving aggressively on a practice that has alarmed football authorities and clubs across Europe as the number of match-fixing incidents – most orchestrated by shady networks based in Asia – has jumped.

In February, an international police probe led by Europol, spanning 13 European countries and carried out over almost two years, exposed Singapore as the centre of a global football match-fixing business.

Europol, the EU law enforcement agency, revealed that the attempted or successful manipulation of more than 380 professional matches over the past five years had been orchestrated by a Singapore-based network.

In what was the largest investigation into football match-fixing so far, Europol established that cases that have resulted in arrests or convictions in Germany, Hungary, Finland and Slovenia since 2011 were all related.

On Wednesday, the Singapore police and anti-corruption agency said they had arrested 12 men and two women in a 12-hour sweep of the island. The individuals, aged between 38 and 60, were being held “on suspicion of being part of an organised crime group involved with match fixing activities”.

“Singapore is committed to eradicate match-fixing as a transnational crime and protect the integrity of the sport. All cases will be pursued vigorously with a view to bring perpetrators to justice,” the police and anti-corruption agency said.

“We appreciate the assistance rendered by the Interpol global anti-match-fixing task force thus far, and will continue to work with the task force and the global community in our fight against global match-fixing.”

Singapore authorities said the suspected leader of the group and several other people who are “subject of ongoing investigations in other jurisdictions for match fixing activities” were among those arrested.

Italian police said in February, after the Europol findings were made public, that they had taken into custody a suspected football match fixer named Admir Suljic, alleged to be part of an international crime ring centred on Singapore.

Those arrested in Singapore were being investigated for offences related to match fixing activities under Singapore’s prevention of corruption act, and for their involvement in organised crime activities.

Five of those arrested, including what the police said was the suspected leader of the group, were being further detained pending additional investigations, the police said. The remaining nine detainees would be released on police bail.

Europol had earlier found that the bribing of officials and players “formed part of a sophisticated organised crime operation”, including a cartel allegedly run from Singapore by Dan Tan Seet Eng, a Singaporean who served time in jail in the 1990s for being an illegal football bookmaker.

The Singapore police did not immediately confirm whether Dan Tan was among those arrested.

Experts say an ecosystem around match-fixing and the financing of it has grown quietly in Singapore over at least 25 years since match-fixers based in the city-state first started interfering with games in Malaysia’s leagues.

But it was not until the 1990s that the practice started to globalise as criminals with well-funded connections in the region – mostly China – were able to pull big money into the business. Match-fixers used Singapore passports, seen as less likely to attract the attention of authorities than many others, experts say.

The money is typically used to help financially struggling clubs, many of them in eastern Europe, in exchange for influence over referees and players. Such bribes typically involve up to €100,000 per match, according to Friedhelm Althans, chief investigator in the German city of Bochum, where a match-fixing scandal beginning in 2009 has led to 39 convictions.

Much of the money comes from the proliferation of illegal online betting operations in Asia. Many of them employ armies of young traders to make bets electronically, many of them allegedly operating from the Philippines.

Singapore has had a thriving football betting culture since gambling on local matches was legalised in 1999 and on international matches played locally in 2002.

The police said it would continue to work with Interpol, which is also involved in the crackdown, to eradicate global match fixing.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed779902-2...44feab7de.html


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