The man who allegedly accused Croatia and Cameroon of foul play, is under arrest in Finland
After the scandal with bonuses, the Cameroon national team was involved in another ugly story. The German publication Spiegel Online claims that the game between the “indomitable lions” and the Croats was negotiable. FIFA, however, has not yet seen anything suspicious in the mentioned match. However, they do not deny that evidence of the dishonest nature of the game may appear in the future. Meanwhile, the Cameroonian Football Federation has launched an investigation into this matter. But as it turned out, the legs of this story grow not from a suspicious surge in bookmaker bets, as is usually the case, but from private correspondence on Facebook.
“Germany will play Algeria on Monday night and if there is anyone who knows in advance how the game will end, it is Wilson Raj Perumal. The Singaporean is considered the "godfather" of match fixing, from which he is said to have made millions. Sports editor Raphael Buschmann, who has been communicating with Perumal for many years, tells amazing things: the organizer of the “negotiations” in a private correspondence on Facebook even before the start of the preliminary round match Croatia - Cameroon absolutely correctly predicted both the result (4:0) and the fact that in the first half time a red card will be shown. But, Buschmann says, he did not comment on Germany’s game,” this publication appeared on the Spiegel website on June 29. This information was circulated by all the world media, and Cameroon, together with Croatia, became involved in an ugly story.
The Croatia-Cameroon match actually ended 4-0, with Alexandre Song, the Cameroonian midfielder, receiving a red card in the 40th minute. But this game took place 10 days before German edition hinted at its contractual nature. Why did you have to wait so long?
Meanwhile, Raj Perumal is now sitting in a Finnish prison, long retired and cooperating with the police and Interpol investigating the case of a Singaporean syndicate earning billions from bookmaker bets and match-fixing around the world.
Who is Wilson Raj Perumal?
Singaporean Wilson Raj Perumal is a kind of Ostap Bender of modern football, who worked for the most important syndicate that makes money on match-fixing and underground betting.
Born in the 60s in a Singaporean village, who began actively betting at the age of 13 and realized quite early that you couldn’t make money just by betting, Perumal grew into the main manipulator of the results of football matches around the world. He became right hand the head of the syndicate Dan Tan (who, by the way, was recently arrested for illegal activities in football), who turned over billions of dollars on bookmaker bets (according to Interpol, the profit was at least $35 billion a year).
Three years ago, Perumal, FIFA's most wanted man, lost the trust of Dan Tan, owing millions because he became addicted to betting. He bet on games that he knew no one had a hand in. And lost to smithereens. And then the syndicate organized his arrest. Wilson was arrested in February 2011 in Finland. First for forged documents, and then, when they realized who they were dealing with, and for his football affairs. Perumal quickly realized who had set him up and immediately made a deal with the investigation. He began to talk about everything; the police only had time to write it down.
For the past two years, Perumal has lived in Budapest under the witness protection program. During this time he got married and had twins. But in April this year, Wilson was detained again in Finland on a warrant issued four years ago in Singapore. Moreover, this order has nothing to do with Perumal’s fraudulent affairs. In 2009, Wilson got into an altercation with a security guard at a Singapore airport, pushed him away and drove away while he tried to detain him. The security guard reported the attack to the police, and a year later the court sentenced the perpetrator to five years in a correctional facility.
And now the “great schemer” is awaiting a decision from the Finnish authorities: to extradite him to Singapore or send him back to Budapest. At the same time, Perumal really hopes that Interpol, the police of those countries in which he helped investigate cases of match-fixing, and FIFA will recognize his usefulness and will not allow the court to deprive the court of the necessary witness.
Italian journalists Alessandro Rigi and Emanuele Piano talk about the current fate of Perumal on their website. Rigi and Piano began investigating the Singapore syndicate in 2012 as independent journalists. And they contacted Perumal, with whom they first communicated by email. During the conversation, the reporters realized that the Singaporean had something to tell the world, especially since he had already provided all the information to the police. And they began to convince him to write a book. By collecting all the stories of Wilson, Riga and Piano, this book was written. And we thought that there would be no end to publishers, but they were mistaken. In their opinion, the material was too lethal, and they were simply afraid to publish it. After some thought, the journalists edited their work a little, removing some names, nicknames and even some stories completely. Especially those that Wilson alone witnessed, and no one can confirm his words. The book can now be purchased as an e-book for £15.
True, the annotation to it says: “After you read this book, you will no longer be able to watch football the same way.”
Secrets of Perumal
After the book “Kelong Kings” (kelong - in Singaporean slang means “agreement”), that is, “Kings of agreements”, appeared on the Internet, and this happened a few months ago, it was immediately torn to pieces and stories were replicated in the press . In the book, Wilson describes how players, coaches, referees and even entire football federations are bought, at all levels - from the youth league of Togo to the World Cup.
In the early 90s, Perumal already had reliable profits in Asia, it was time to move to Europe. The schemer started in England, with the FA Cup match between Liverpool and Birmingham in 1995. I tried to negotiate with the Birmingham goalkeeper to hand over the game for £20,000, but he refused.
Next victim evil genius Dmitry Kharin, who was then defending the colors of Chelsea, who was already promised 60 thousand dollars, became known to all Russian fans. But Dmitry also refused, saying that during the 1994 World Cup he already had similar offers, but they did not seduce him. We remember that the Russian team then lost everything in the group except the match... oops... with Cameroon! Ours defeated the Africans then 6:1.
Another funny story. When Wilson was unable to reach an agreement with the players, the idea was born to bribe the stadium electricians so that the arena lighting would turn off at the moment when the desired score was recorded on the scoreboard. The fact is that Asian bookmakers paid out winnings even after interrupted matches. The plan was carried out in 1997 during the matches “ West Ham" - Crystal Palace and Arsenal - Wimbledon.
The Portugal-Tunisia match at the 1996 Olympics was also, according to Wilson, fixed. It was necessary for Tunisia to lose by more than one goal. The goalkeeper helped, when the score was 1:0, he jumped while hitting the goal in the other direction from the ball.
In 2001, the idea of turning off the power at the stadium was implemented during the Champions League match between Fenerbahçe and Barça. However, technology advanced so much that the bet did not work. The backup generator immediately turned on, and Perumal lost a million dollars.
One of Perumal’s loudest confessions was the statement that it was thanks to his machinations that Honudras and Nigeria qualified for the 2010 World Cup. Circumstances were such that the falsified results of other matches in the qualifying group helped these two teams reach the World Cup. “And I couldn’t brag to anyone! Damn it!” - Perumal wrote in his book.
Some have probably heard of this man, who in 2011 was arrested by the Finnish police for fixing matches in the Finnish football league.
During his arrest, lists of phone numbers of many top coaches, as well as many famous football players, as well as contacts of thirty-eight European football officials.
Before Perumal remained silent, FIFA employees went to work as usual and left as usual. After Perumal decided to cooperate, the lights in the FIFA windows stopped going out altogether.
In his book “The Kings of Negotiations,” Perumal recalls how he went to England to develop his business in English clubs.
His first target was Chelsea goalkeeper Dmitry Kharin. Perumal and his accomplice acted simply. He waited near the club gates for the players to start leaving. Seeing Kharin, they introduced themselves as fans of the club, asked to be photographed, and then asked Dmitry to give them a ride to central London. Already in the car, Perumal took out sixty thousand dollars from his bag and offered it to Kharin, so that Chelsea would lose the next match. Kharin refused.
“He said that he had a long-term contract with Chelsea. He said that he did not want to risk his career for the sake of this money. Then, we just got out of the car, as soon as he drove away, we rushed into the nearest taxi and left the place, afraid that Kharin will hand us over to the police", says Perumal.
What has changed over the last twenty years in football in terms of match fixing?
"Now it has become much more difficult. "Bat Radar" and "Feder Bet" appeared. Using them, it is possible to track suspicious bets in real time. Now there are many specialists and offices that monitor rate fluctuations."
Are there fewer match-fixings in the world?
“I’ll answer you this way: fewer people are using them. Many are already afraid to organize them.”
What needs to be done to prevent match fixing?
“Close legal and illegal bookmakers operating online. These two actions alone will greatly reduce the number of match-fixings."
Raj Perumal always dreamed of becoming a military man. But the biography was spoiled by reports to the police in childhood. He played bets and lost very often. And then one day he decided to change the situation. He decided to adapt to himself desired results. Soon he entered the gaming syndicate led by Dan Tan. With the development of the Internet, Perumal also developed, he had more opportunities to control the outcome of matches. It was already possible to bet not only on matches in Singapore, but also on the entire world football.
During the Beijing Olympics, money was loaded not only on the main indicators, but also on secondary ones, which well masked the scammer’s manipulations.
For example, Perumal himself described how he paid the Nigerian national team to start the match from the center of the field first in the match against Argentina. The referee threw a coin into the air and by lot, the match went to Argentina. And then, the “charged” captain of Nigeria asks Riquelme to give him the right to be the first to start the match and he agrees. The bet has passed!
The purpose of agreements is to make money?
"No, not always. Many owners of top clubs have good relationship and very often they agree that the opponent will concede the match to them. Then representatives of the clubs agree on this among themselves and there is no financial reason for it."
Let’s say I’m the owner of a club and representatives of the opponent offer me a match. What are my next steps? With whom to negotiate?
"I can answer from my own experience. To be one hundred percent sure of the outcome of the match, I need to come to an agreement with four players. Among them there must be two central defenders, and not a goalkeeper. And most importantly, the coach must be aware of these agreements, and accordingly, his share."
Who is better at communicating with you? Referees or players?
"A lot depends on who is poorer in terms of financial situation. In general, it all depends on the individual. Some completely refuse to cooperate. Once, I could not persuade a player to go onto the field and get sent off. Then I beat him with a golf club before the match and he didn't play at all. By the way, I raised a lot of money at this event."
In his book, Perumal wrote that he tried to stay out of Eastern European football. He mainly concentrated on matches in Africa.
But he had partners who worked in Eastern Europe and, according to their information, the most corrupt in terms of agreements was Belarus, or rather, its lower leagues. But even there, over time, the situation began to improve recently.
"Now Belarusian football became cleaner in this regard. I monitor the coefficients and I can say that they are stable and regular."
How much money can you earn from fixing a match, for example in Belarus?
“In such weak leagues, it is impossible to earn millions on one match. Maximum is one hundred thousand dollars. Otherwise, you automatically attract the attention of the relevant services.”
Have you ever thought about fixing matches in Russia?
“No, never. I don’t know your language and I don’t know your mentality. Also, I don’t get involved in the little-studied betting market. You can win big.”
You say that you try to stay out of the Eastern European betting market. What does this mean?
"I mean violence. Eastern Europeans are very dangerous in this regard. Asians are very easy to negotiate in this regard."
How to organize a fixed match? The main manipulator in the history of football answers
Wilson Raj Perumal organized a hundred match fixings, served three prison terms for it, and wrote a book. Now he answers questions from Match TV about how to influence the results of games, how much you can earn from it and how to deal with it in general.
The man in the photo is Wilson Raj Perumal. You may have heard of him. Perhaps they even watched the matches whose scenarios he came up with. In 2011, Perumal was detained by Finnish police after attempting to fix a match in the Finnish top league. In his phone they found contacts of football leaders and football players from 38 countries. His laptop contained phone numbers and emails of football people from more than 50 countries (in total, FIFA includes 209 associations). Investigators became even more interested a few days after the arrest. Perumal made a deal and began to remember what connected him with each of those listed in the phone book.
Before Perumal's stories, FIFA's security department lived an ordinary life. People came to work at 9:00, had lunch from 13:00 to 14:00, turned off their computers at 17:59 and went home. After Perumal spoke, the lights in the FIFA offices stopped going off.
People leafed through Perumal’s reports and realized that football outside the top hundred of the FIFA rankings needed to be closed. And perhaps even higher. In his book “Kings of Negotiations,” Perumal recalls how he went to England to develop a new market. One of his targets was Chelsea goalkeeper Dmitry Kharin. Perumal and his friend acted simply. They waited for Kharin at the door of the base, pretended to be fans, took pictures and asked if the goalkeeper could give them a lift to the city. On the road, Perumal took out 60 thousand dollars in cash and suggested that Kharin make Chelsea lose the next match. Kharin refused.
He said that he had a long-term contract with Chelsea,” Perumal says in an interview with Match TV. - He said that he would not want to ruin his career because of this money.
- You got into a stranger’s car and offered a bribe. How is this possible?
Of course, we understood that there was a risk that he would immediately report us to the police. As soon as he dropped us off his Mini, we rushed to the first taxi we could find to get away as quickly as possible.
In that conversation with Perumal, Kharin admitted that he was offered to play match-fixing at the 1994 World Cup. And then he also refused. Perumal’s words did not surprise the Chelsea goalkeeper then and do not surprise him now.
I think Kharin could well be offered to compete in matches at the World Championships. He actually told us this. I have no reason to doubt it. I think at that time, agreements were played at tournaments of this level.
- Why then? What has changed in twenty years?
Back then there were no systems like BetRadar and FederBet, with the help of which you can see in real time how much money is being bet on which events, and track down suspicious bets. Back then there were fewer people following bets on not the top matches. Now there are specialists assessing rate fluctuations. More controlling companies.
- So there are fewer match-fixings in the world?
My answer is this: many have become afraid to organize them.
- Three things that need to be done to permanently solve the problem of match fixing in football.
Close legal online bookmakers. Close illegal online businesses. These two steps will reduce the number of match fixes to a minimum.
Wilson Raj Perumal dreamed of becoming a military man, but as a child he ruined his biography by ending up in the police. He began to gamble and became very upset when he lost. In order not to lose again, he decided to organize the desired outcomes of matches. Then he joined the largest syndicate, led by Dan Tan. With the development of the Internet, it has even more opportunities. It was possible to bet not only on matches of the Singapore championship, but also to manipulate world football.
For the Beijing Olympics, money could be uploaded online not only for match results, but also for secondary indicators. It has become easier. For example, Perumal described how he paid the Nigerians money to be the first to start from the center of the field in the Olympic semi-final match with Argentina. And he loaded a crazy amount into the bookmaker’s office. One of the scariest moments of his career happened when the referee tossed a coin before the match and pointed at Riquelme. One of the happiest moments of his career happened when Riquelme turned to the words of the Nigerian captain, listened to him, and then raised his hands up and said: “No problem, you start.”
- So most of the agreements are played to make money on bets?
Optional. Presidents of top league clubs have good relationships with each other, they can be good friends. Therefore, when one club needs points more than another, they can negotiate among themselves. And there are no financial reasons.
Let's imagine: I'm the president football club. Another president suggested that my team should lose this time. I agreed. What are my next steps, how do I need to negotiate with the team?
I know from my own experience: in order to be 100% sure of a positive result, you need to come to an agreement with four players. Among them there should be two central defenders. It has always been more convenient and easier for me to work with central defenders, rather than with goalkeepers. Well, it is also very important that the coach knows about your intentions.
- Who is easier to reach an agreement with: football players or referees?
This question cannot be answered unambiguously; it all depends on the specific situation, and not on whether you are trying to negotiate with the referee or with the player. A lot depends on a person’s financial situation.
In his book, Perumal wrote that he tried to stay out of the Eastern European market and worked more in Africa. But he had many partners, and according to his information, one of the main breeding grounds for match-fixing in the world was the minor leagues of Belarus. But now everything is different there.
I think the Belarusian league has become much cleaner now. I keep an eye on the betting on these matches. They are very stable. Therefore, I can conclude that everything is better there than before.
- How much money can you earn from holding a fixed match in Belarus?
It is impossible to earn big money in such tournaments. Especially now that bookmakers control everything. I think you can earn something like 100 thousand dollars for a match there.
- Have you ever thought about holding a fixed match in Russia?
No, never. The reason is simple: I just don't speak your language. I was not associated with this market, so I don’t know how many fixed matches were played in your country.
You wrote that you tried not to get involved in the Eastern European market, because it is very dangerous there. What did you mean?
I meant violence. Eastern Europeans are more dangerous in this regard. Asians are much calmer.
Perumal has never counted how many match-fixings there have been in his career, but he thinks it's about 100 games. His books are even on the website. special section with match highlights, which was organized by Perumal. Sometimes he gave instructions to coaches directly from the bench. In the 90s, few places controlled who was next to the team in the technical area.
"Black bookmakers" and purchased matches. End of material about Wilson Raj Perumal.
Perumal had great connections in Asia, and the African team of Zimbabwe generally received a salary from him - at the same time, it was often not the titular call of the national that was brought to tournaments, but the Olympic, youth team, or some club: who would understand the country, whose economy fun and successfully going to hell?
The time has come to go to Europe.
Perumal already had unsuccessful experience working on the Old Continent - in particular, he tried to bribe Chelsea goalkeeper Dmitry Kharin, but the attempt was unsuccessful. Perumal was advised to immediately leave the UK (which the Blue Security Council was concerned about), and in addition, they hinted that this was not his territory at all (these were already serious guys from the Tirana drug cartel).
Thus, Perumal decided to work with the Finnish second league. The scheme was simple: 4-5 African legionnaires were brought to the club, the coach put them in every game, and they ensured the result. Naturally, the club presidents also had a share: they were promised that their teams would not be relegated from the league, and their card account would be replenished weekly with a significant amount.
But at the end of 2010, Dan Tan's cartel began to expand into the Balkans, where it established market relations with the Tirana drug cartel. The Albanian heroin kings, through Tan, gained access to the Singapore gambling house (300,000 euros per click), in exchange for this allowing Tan and his team to work in their own habitat.
In January 2011, Tan called Perumal and said that there was some business in which Raj's share would be 60,000 euros. “What kind of matches?” - Perumal immediately asked. After a long theatrical pause, Tan replied with inexpressible pride: “Napoli - Sampdoria 4:0 and Brescia - Bari 2:0.”
Perumal couldn't believe it. This is Serie A!
It turned out that the agents of the football players who owed money to the Sapin brothers, and therefore were involved in the Tirana drug cartel, themselves turned to Tan, deciding to bet 600,000 euros - thereby, they repaid the debt and made a profit. The catch was that Sampdoria agreed to “lie down”, but only with a score of 0:2, not 0:4. In the end, the old fox Perumal, of course, settled everything the way the cartel needed it. His negotiating talent was valued at 10% of the total bid of €0.6 million.
Sampdoria “lays down” under Napoli to repay the players’ debts
In Finland, Perumal worked with the Ravaniemi club, where he was infuriated by the extravagant Zambians. To make money, a Singaporean businessman organized the U"23 tournament in Egypt - everything worked out quite well there. The choice of the country was also not made by chance: in Egypt they love football and show all the games of the Olympic or youth teams on television, therefore, bookmakers open the line .
Money was also made from individual “goods”. Perumal organized a friendly match between Bahrain and Togo, and Togo was represented by the second team, which was completely financially dependent on the Tamil functionary. The underground football businessman hoped to increase the total by “more”, so the match was to be officiated by a result man, the famous “Ibracadabra”. It seemed that the job was done, but someone leaked information to Asian bookmakers that the match had been bought, and in Asia everyone began to bet on “total over”.
As a result, the bets on the line changed and it turned out that you can only make a profit by betting on the “total less”. By that time, Bahrain had already opened the scoring, but Perumal still decided to take a chance and informed the assistant coach of the Togo national team about the change in plans. He cursed and re-instructed the players, after which the Togo team immediately dug in near their own penalty area. “Whistle all offsides, the bet has changed, we are playing for less total. The total is two and a half,” the assistant coach told the linesmen, “right and left hand” Ibrahim Chabu. The star team from Niger did their dirty deed by not awarding two obvious penalties against the Togo national team and finding offsides even in those game situations when the ball was localized in the area of the center circle. Thanks to the virtuoso work of “Ibracadabra,” Wilson Raj Perumal raised about half a million.
Working with the national team and clubs are two different things. Both there and there have their difficulties. It is easier to organize a national team, however, the organization of the “product” itself costs about 200 thousand euros - at the same time, you need to pray that the bookmakers open the line, otherwise all aspirations and finances are down the drain. The net exhaust could be approximately 400 thousand euros. Clubs play every week and agreements need to be very careful, because fans or bookmakers may suspect something is wrong if a team of a certain level suddenly begins to show results that do not correspond to this level.
If you don’t reach an agreement with the players, you reach an agreement with the referees. If you don't negotiate with the judges, you negotiate with the coaches. If you don’t reach an agreement with anyone, you look for another solution.
In Asian sportsbooks, a return play is played if the match is interrupted in the first half. That is, if something goes wrong, then the meeting must be interrupted in order to return the money. Back in the nineties, Perumal had an idea with a power cut (the match is interrupted and played out the next day, the cartel can reconsider the bet and loses nothing), which was implemented in the Derby - Wimbledon, West Ham - Crystal Palace and Wimbledon - Arsenal matches. Naturally, there was no bribery of football players here; they bribed those people who have access to the electric switch. Then they offered 100 thousand euros to an electrician to turn off the power at a meeting between Barcelona and Fenerbahce. Why so many? Because it was a Champions League match and the electrician would have been fired immediately without severance pay.
Perumal lost a hundred thousand: the stadium was equipped with a spare generator.
As already mentioned, things were not going well for Perumal in Ravaniemi. He tried to dock with Tampere or PoPa, but they already belonged to the Croats and Albanians. Or rather, Croats and Albanians from the Tirana drug cartel have already ordered their music there. Ravaniemi, despite all the upheavals, reached the top Finnish league, which in Asian bookmakers meant an increase in the rate to 18 thousand euros per click, and now the cartel was much more interested. But Perumal swore off dealing with this team after another unsuccessful deal. Before the start of the match, he asked the players to provide “under total,” but they said that the field was very small, they felt strong and asked to bet either on them or on “over total.”
“The score will be 5:2 in our favor or something like that,” they assured.
Perumal charged 100 thousand euros for the game.
Ravaniemi drew 1:1.
“People think our business is simple and easy. I went, made an agreement, everything was tip top. In fact, these are huge nerves. Everyone and everything is thrown here - from bosses to subordinates. You can, for example, charge your man money and tell him to bribe such and such a team for such and such a match. A man calls and says that it didn’t work out, the players didn’t fall for it. He comes and brings money. Years later you will find out that he poured your money into his result, made a bet and hit the jackpot, and simply brought you a “charge”. Do they kill here? Yes. But not like in the movies, where people get their heads shot off for leaking information. Usually small “black bookmakers” kill people when they just begin to gain authority. The cartel can kill a small fry just to demonstrate their power, to show who is who in this fucking life. No one will kill a large debtor. He is charged interest, which he pays on time. If he doesn’t hide, doesn’t run away, doesn’t leave, doesn’t hide, then there are no questions to him at all. Yes, the person lost, but he pays his interest. They often tell me that you are a disgrace to football and all that. Do you know what I'll tell you? When I offer someone money for an agreement and receive a refusal, then I don’t bother with this person anymore. He is a professional in his field, ok, no questions. But if you want to raise money, you work with me. And I have always been honest with everyone I worked with. Not a single person will tell you: “Wilson Raj Perumal cheated me.”
Wilson Raj Perumal was sentenced by Finnish authorities to two years in prison. In prison, he began to cooperate with the investigation, and a year later he was transferred to Hungary, where he still lives. Perumal has uncovered a whole network of contracting parties, but FIFA is confident that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Wilson Raj Perumal is the organizer of many fixed matches and entire tournaments.
His book “Kelong Kings”, co-authored with two Italian journalists and published on April 28, 2014, became a bestseller even at the biblio-post-production stage.
Many people are not so honest with us, and we are used to it. But it's hard to realize that even football can deceive you. This is already truly scary.
Negotiated football matches- a shadow business, the turnover of which is forty times greater than the capitalization of the entire legal football industry. GQ tells the story of the rise and fall of Wilson Raj Perumal, a man who made a fortune from match-fixing, bought up half the players on the planet, and then lost everything he had.
On the morning of February 20, 2011, a man named Jonathan Tan Xin walked into the central police station in the Finnish city of Rovaniemi (the same place where Julio Medem's film "Lovers of the Arctic Circle" takes place). Tan Xin, a Singaporean of Chinese origin, told the officer on duty that another Singaporean - of Indian origin - had recently arrived in the city on a fake passport. Police inspector Jukka Lakkala, at the head of the task force, immediately went to the Scandic Hotel to organize surveillance.
The suspect's name was Wilson Raj Perumal. On February 23, operatives followed him to the French restaurant Fransmanni, not far from the local football stadium. The match had just finished and the surrounding streets were full of fans who had come to watch their team, Rovaniemen Palloseura, draw the game 1-1.
The officers watched with interest as three men, two Georgians and one Zambian, joined Perumal. All three are Palloseura players. The conversation was in a raised voice; Perumal scolded the grown men, who sat with their eyes downcast, like naughty teenagers. Lakkala had no doubt about the significance of what was happening. When they detained Perumal the next day, Jukka called the Finnish Football Federation and asked if they knew a guest from distant Singapore. The Federation had never heard of Perumal and, in turn, dialed FIFA.
The head of FIFA security, former Interpol administrator, Australian Chris Eaton knew very well who Perumal was. I knew because I had been chasing him for six months. When Eaton arrived in Rovaniemi, he told the stunned detectives that they had managed to take into custody the largest organizer of match-fixing. Wilson Raj Perumal, the mysterious, ever-eluding international football gambler who bought and sold matches in 26 countries and made hundreds of illegal millions for his clients - Asian and European crime syndicates - has finally found himself behind bars. Tellingly, on a tip from another gangster.
The most popular game Planet Earth is the most corrupt. Match-fixing cases are currently being conducted in prosecutors' offices in at least 25 states. Operation " Last bid"has shaken the Italian Football Federation to its core - 22 clubs and 52 players are now awaiting subpoenas. The Zimbabwe Football Association has vetoed the call-up of eighty players suspected of being involved in bought matches. Lu Zun, the first ever Chinese referee to officiate a World Cup game, received a five-and-a-half year prison sentence with confiscation of property in February this year for bribes amounting to $128,000 he took to fix Chinese Super League matches (essentially, he easily got off - according to Chinese laws, Tsun, as a civil servant, could well have gotten the tower). The Korean K-League suffered a devastating loss of 57 defendants in the game-rigging case (of which four committed suicide in the most suspicious manner). The director of Hungarian second division team REAC Budapest jumped out of a window after six of his team's players were accused of cheating. Finally - the apotheosis of dark deeds! - the youth team of Turkmenistan beat the youth team of the Maldives with a score of 2:1. She beat in a game that never happened - a “ghost match”, bets on which were accepted by international bookmakers, despite its pure fantasy.
The reason for the epidemic spread of the infection is simple - excess profits. The underground betting market has ballooned to incredible proportions over the past decade, with underground bookmakers accepting $500 billion in bets annually, according to Interpol. That is, exactly the same as legal betting offices. The exorbitant amount of a trillion dollars added together is equal to two-thirds of the budget of the global military-industrial complex. For comparison, the total turnover of the global football industry is $25 billion. How is this possible?
The advent of the Internet has led to the explosion of gaming sites, offering players a much more diverse selection of bets than the local bookmaker or betshops with their reduced rates. Moreover, the Internet has changed the very model of sports betting. Twenty years ago, soccer matches accounted for about 15 percent of global betting volume. The Internet has freed up the hands of online sportsbooks and made possible an endless range of offers on the details of the game - the elapsed/remaining time of the match, the current score, the number of players on the field, the number of cards, penalties, corners, fouls, etc. The attractiveness of soccer as a betting offer has increased significantly - nowadays bets on European football account for up to 70 percent of the total volume of the international betting market.
Wilson Raj Perumal, mysterious,
the sharpie who always eluded his pursuers
international football
The Internet has made possible a model where players can engage in bet trading; The extensive international network of betting on football matches resembles a living organism - something like the stock market with its eternal bustle of changing numbers, a gigantic volume of offers and instant winnings. The new sophistication and scale of the global market have made the illegal betting industry a tempting business prospect for those with the brains and money to bend the odds to their advantage and create a highly structured transnational criminal enterprise. The Chinese triads, skimming off the local economic boom and the Asian underground betting market, have long dreamed of creating a global system for organizing match-fixing.
The first attempts were quite comical. November 3, 1997, during the match English Premier League between West Ham and Crystal Palace, the Hammers equalized the score (2:2) in the 65th minute of the match. Suddenly the lights in the stadium went out. The same thing happened at Arsenal's match against Wimbledon a month later. The “Floodlight Affair,” as it was nicknamed in the British press, soon came to light. It turned out that a Malay gang working for the Chinese gilded the hands of the stadium technicians, who turned off the electricity at the very moment when the score in the game reached the value the gangsters needed.
The scam turned out to be too primitive to make far-reaching plans on it; such incidents are easy to detect and stop. In addition, “Projectorgate” stood out from the category of traditional agreements when players and referees are bought. The triads had to develop a more elegant know-how with which they could get into the soul (and pockets) of the international football community and manipulate it from the inside. What was needed was a man with a great criminal soul and a wide smile, an attractive cunning person with a convenient passport, a dexterous babble, capable of picking up the key to anyone’s heart. A Great Schemer was needed.
Perumal learned everything from his former boss, a gangster named Rajendran Kurusami - a man who loved to tell the story of how he once made 17 million in betting in 5 months. Perumal learned everything from him. How to gain trust. How to pay more than competitors and thereby buy loyalty. How to keep your wards in fear - not with direct threats, but by intimidating someone in their presence, so that the addressee understands the price of the issue. How to back up words with deeds (in 2000, Perumal and an accomplice ambushed Croatian defender Ivica Ragusa and hit him in the knees with a hockey stick right in the middle of a Singapore street).
When Kurusami went to prison, the reorganization of the Internet betting business was already in full swing. The time has come to spread your wings and, taking advantage of the successful Singaporean experience, set off on an international voyage to the glory of super profits. Perumal honed his skills in Africa - in Zimbabwe and Ghana - in the late 90s. The tactics changed - he no longer bought individual matches, he bought up national football federations on the vine. Under the guise of front companies with names like Footy Media and Football 4 U, Perumal rushed around the planet, posing as an expert in organizing international friendlies between national teams. The main targets were national federations that were experiencing better times. It was easy to find them.
The gangster signed contracts with Bolivia and South Africa, paying each federation one hundred thousand dollars for the right to appoint its own arbitrators. “Most football federations languish forever on the brink of bankruptcy,” Perumal wrote to Singaporean journalist Zaihan Yusof from a Finnish prison. - If you offer them an opponent who is ready to play friendly match, having paid all expenses, they will welcome you with open arms. Of course, without knowing what’s behind it.”
And behind this is a Singaporean crime syndicate, controlled, according to FIFA, by four bosses, whose legal businesses finance the activities of Perumal and his henchmen. Dan Tan owns an engineering business. China Morgan - travel agency. Rajendran Prasad - a plastic bag factory. Peter Pe - spa. All four work in collusion using the hawala network - ancient system channels of underground transfer of money, built on the principles of thieves' honor. Behind this criminal quartet, according to FIFA, are powerful Chinese triads that control thousands of “boiler rooms” throughout Southeast Asia. Hundreds of silent workers hunkered down at computers, pressing buttons with quick fingers, placing bets amounting to $3,000. The minimal nature of these bets and their scattering across a huge number of credit cards do not allow bookmakers - both licensed and illegal - to track down their source.
It was a magnificent scam that lasted ten years. The illegal network grew and expanded - more and more new players and judges fell into it. Profits grew, Perumal’s subordinates became increasingly famous in the intra-football world. One day one of his emissaries attended a youth match in Kenya. During the opening ceremony, senior officials of the local federation walked onto the field at the head of the procession in solemn silence. As soon as one of them spotted Perumal's man on the podium, the easy-going official turned the entire procession around and moved it to the podium to greet the benefactor. Everyone passing by received a hundred dollar bill in their palm.
Soon players, referees and officials from all over the world were calling Perumal and his men. “Hey, we have a match next week. Let's come to an agreement." Supply outstripped demand; the coaches of the national teams telephoned the gangsters right from the edge of the field, offering to “miss a couple of goals for you.” The head of one of the national federations once called Perumal’s man in London: “I’m here with my family, our wallet was stolen. Could you lend me $5,000?”
Perumal boasted that he had "better control of Syria football league than Assad - his citizens." He saw himself as a football Robin Hood, helping disadvantaged players in Africa, Central America and the Middle East to provide for families, buy houses, send children to school and pay for treatment for parents.
In the absence of real police control, the syndicate became completely insolent, announcing “ghost matches” that did not take place in reality, but were indicated on international betting sites. Information on such games was provided to bookmakers by a purchased “observer.”
As a mockery of the defrauded companies and their clients, the criminals came up with names for non-existent referees - Hedy Larsen, for example, or Blepp Johnsen (a mocking spit in the direction of FIFA President Sepp Blatter).
FIFA's new security team, led by Chris Eaton, has discovered that in many parts of the world, organizing a friendly match requires little more than the payment of stadium rent. There are no documents to sign or sanctioning procedures - nothing that would turn an official FIFA friendly match into a truly official match. “FIFA sanctions all matches,” says a security operative, “but many matches take place without any sanctions.” Another service employee decided to visit the office of the organizing company. The office was empty, with an “Import-Export” sign hanging on the door. Having dialed the number indicated on the door, the operative heard a distant female voice, drowned out by the roar of a child.
One day in Costa Rica, Wilson Perumal had a free day. We had time to kill before our flight to Rio de Janeiro. Perumal locked himself in the room and began to play at bets. It was not enough for him to manage the agreements. There was, after all, no excitement in this - it was like dealing marked cards to yourself. So he bet on Chicago Bulls games or Manchester United matches - on clubs and games that he or anyone else knew he had not purchased. Criminal instinct led the lost prince of the shadow empire through the labyrinth of stakes; after all, he knew how to “read the players” and feel the nuances of the game like no one else. “He had a sense of smell,” says Perumal’s former assistant. “And the eye is sharpened.” In 12 hours spent staring at a computer screen in a Costa Rican hotel room, Perumal made a million in bets. In the excitement, he forgot about the time, blew the flight and rushed back to the hotel; I wanted to bet again and again - and over the next 12 hours I lost all my winnings. The crazy gangster blamed the hotel staff for his fiasco, who refused to put him in his previous, “lucky” room.
Perumal began to bet and lose recklessly; I once lost three million in three months. The only way to recoup such money was to deceive the employer. For example, Dan Tan sent him half a million through hawala channels to buy a match - Perumal simply took the money for himself, hoping that the required account would form by itself. Soon he was deeply in debt; a million to one boss, half a million to another, another one and a half to a third. The Great Schemer fell into despair and began to mess around; organized, for example, a match between the fake Togo team and the Bahrain team, which happened on September 7, 2010. Bahrain's coach, formerly famous Austrian footballer Josef Hickersberger, said that the players fielded by Togo were "not able to play 90 minutes." The match received unnecessary press for the syndicate.
Following the exploits of the adventurer who had gone off the rails, the bosses called his assistants on the carpet - Dani Jay Prakesh and Anthony Raj Santhia. They complained that they no longer trusted Perumal. It was no longer possible to work with him; he had completely lost his shores. Moreover, I started a Facebook page for myself! Something had to be done. Irony of fate: the downfall of the evil betting genius began because of his own passion for the game.
**Mocking the deceived **
**criminals made up bookmakers**
names of non-existent referees.
When Perumal turned on the TV in another hotel on October 8, 2010, he realized that his game was over. On TV, the Venezuelan national team hosted the Bolivian national team. The match was judged by Ibrahim Shebu, a referee from Niger, Perumal’s protégé and the most reliable of the staff of purchased FIFA referees. It was he who was the referee at the Togo impostor match. It was he who awarded three crazy penalties in the South Africa-Guatemala match, which ended with a score of 5:0. It was he who called back dozens of goals due to false offsides and appointed as much extra time as was necessary to squeeze out the desired score. It was he who handed out red cards left and right. When Anthony Raj Santia contacted him about the upcoming meeting at the Polideportivo de Pueblo Nuevo stadium in the Venezuelan city of San Cristobal, the corrupt judge did not ask any questions.
Santhia and Prakesh bypassed Perumal and themselves took advantage of the network of personal connections that the Singaporean had been weaving for more than ten years, shorting the purchased arbitrator directly with the syndicate. When the bosses equipped Perumal's lieutenants to bypass their boss, they, in order to certify their loyalty, told them all his ins and outs. At that time, Perumal was already in Finland to personally supervise the deal on behalf of Dan Tan. Perumal had been arranging deals for Palloseura since 2003, filling the team with “his” players from Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia and promising them a paradise life in the Arctic Circle. The team generated so much profit that Dan Tan eventually decided to buy it.
In dire need of money, Perumal, angry with the owner, decided to sabotage the deal. Having concluded an agreement with a front Hungarian company, the Finns sold the club for half a million dollars. Having received the money, Perumal gave the Finns only 200 thousand. The Finns called the Hungarians, who called the Singaporeans. When all the interested parties gathered in the office in Rovaniemi, it became clear who was causing the general misunderstanding.
In the absence of Perumal, who had lost confidence, Santhia became preoccupied with organizing the largest agreements in his career. Latvia-Bolivia and Estonia-Bulgaria, both matches in Antalya. Due to his inexperience, he could not even imagine that both matches were targeted by FIFA long before the opening whistle: the Secretary General of the Latvian Football Federation, Janis Mezeckis, was concerned about the appointment of referees and contacted FIFA. Chris Eaton, in turn, alerted London observers from Sportradar, a firm that monitors suspicious matches.
Sportradar staff recorded that the betting dynamics were the same for both matches. The opening odds of over-under 2.5 goals caused an incredible surge in activity on international betting sites. “The attention these games received in the market was completely disproportionate to their status,” says Sportradar co-CEO Darren Small. “The purse of bets on the over-under for these matches reached five million euros.” The results of the meetings, as often happens in agreements, were brazenly obvious. Seven goals in two games. Everything - from the penalty spot. When the football player missed one of the penalties, they allowed him to kill.
After the matches in Antalya, Santia found himself on the sidelines, and it became clear to the Singapore syndicate that FIFA had its finger on the pulse of events. Dan Tan and his partners, forced, among other things, to deal with the consequences of the thwarted purchase of the Finnish club, came to the conclusion that Perumal had betrayed them to FIFA. Then Dan Tan made a decision that became fatal for his business. Going against criminal ethics, the boss ordered Santhia to hand over Perumal to the police. Santia sent six - Jonathan Tan Xin, who, by going to the Rovaniemi police station, put an end to the career of Wilson Perumal. At least for the time being.
Realizing the abundance of evidence against himself, Perumal, offended by the bosses, agreed to cooperate with the authorities; provided information sufficient for an Italian court to issue an arrest warrant for Dan Tan in December 2011. After serving a year in a Finnish prison, Perumal was moved to a secure apartment in Budapest, where sources say he is now painting a detailed picture of the syndicate's activities in exchange for a reduced sentence.
I'm meeting with a syndicate member in Singapore. This is Perumal's colleague. Like him, he is an authoritative expert on purchased games. A man walks into a cafe, calmly orders an espresso; a talkative, charming fellow, like everyone else in this business. We talk about the World Cup and whether it is possible to buy main match planets. “We pay the arbitrator 15 million. Each player gets 10. Total is a billion for everyone. And they bet 15 billion on the final. So count it. I think anything is possible if you try hard enough.”
My companion sips his espresso and we change the subject. We are talking about his former accomplice Wilson Raj Perumal. “Secured apartment? Don't be funny. The guard went to get coffee, Perumal went to the toilet, smelled, smelled - and the job was done. They'll take him out, hire a sniper. They offered me 300 grand just to fly to Budapest and point my finger at it. They want me to sit on the roof with a sniper. The Russians made 350 million from this business last year. Wilson is stopping people from making money."
