"Are you here for the money or…"
I just said 'or'; I was prepared for the worse but had no fear in my heart. If Pal and his bouncers were going to stab me, I would never have pleaded for mercy. I'm not a sheep; I would have tried to kill at least one of them.
I still owed Pal the 80 thousand dollars that Danny had stolen from me after the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.
"I don't want to know who took the money", Pal had said back then, "you owe me".
For a couple of years I had bought time, then, when I went to prison in 1998, I lost touch with Pal altogether. When I came out in 2001, I didn't look for him. I was locked up again until 2006 and still had not seen or heard from Pal until that day, when he suddenly barged into my hotel room.
"You owe me", said Pal. "I am here to talk about money".
Once Pal had revealed his aims, the tension subsided. He noticed that I was not intimidated by him or his bouncers and gave up trying to threaten me. Pal had brought his boys along just as a reminiscence of old times. He wanted to show me that he still had power and that he was still the same old arrogant Pal. But he was no longer my boss or the man that I remembered during the Malaysia Cup years.
Both Dan and I were match-fixers, I had even started fixing matches before Pal, but neither of us even came close to making the money that Pal had made back then. That's why, when people call me the Kelong King, I usually reply: "Why are you calling me that? The King of Kelong is the person who made the most money. He is the number one, that's the hierarchy".
You had to give it to him; to have China-men under your control is no easy task for a non-Chinese, let alone for an Indian. In my eyes, Pal stole the crown. He had the entire Malaysia Cup in his hands; sixty thousand people that sat in the stadium watching a match without knowing what its outcome would be. Only he knew. But those days were long gone. He was now down and out and looked older. The big boss had lost his shine and was growing bald and chubby.
"OK, take a seat", I waved him to a chair. "How much do I owe you?"
"You owe me 60 thousand dollars", Pal said as he dismissed my offer to sit with a jerk of the head, "the rest, you've already paid".
The Kingpin was standing in front of me asking me for a mere 60 thousand dollars. The very same man who had openly declared in front of a Malaysian Court of Justice once: "I bet one million dollars on every fixed game".
During that trial, Pal had taken the witness stand and 'killed' people who had worked loyally under him over the course of years.
"This guy did this, that guy did that".
And he had gotten away with it; his features had been concealed. His face had not been exposed in the media or else everybody in Singapore would have known how much of a mother-fucker he was. A member of the triads testifying against his 'brothers'. Pal should have accepted to go inside for five years, maybe even ten, but should have never turned prosecution-witness.
"I thought I still owed you 80 thousand", I said calmly.
"No", he replied. "Your balance with me is 60, you've already paid 20 thousand".
"Is that so?" I asked. "I don't even remember".
Pal was an arrogant fucker and I didn't like him but he was not my enemy, nor did I ever treat him as such.
"OK", I said, "I only have 30 thousand in the room with me right now. The rest, you can come and pick up on Monday".
He seemed satisfied.
"Deal", he said. "Wilson, you've always been a gentleman. We'll see you on Monday with the remaining 30 thousand".
Money owed is money owed. Ten, twenty, one hundred years can pass, but until I settle my debt, I still owe you.
I later learned that Pal was on the run from Singapore, where he owed money to a number of people. His Chinese creditors were not willing to discuss business with him anymore, they were just looking for him to knife him and kill him. Pal was hiding in Malaysia, he was broke, and somehow he had managed to find out where I was.
"Here are your 30 thousand", I told Pal. "You'll get the rest on Monday. Finished. Just give me a minute now, I'll see you downstairs in the cafeteria for a cup of coffee".
After Pal and his hired muscle had left the room, I explained the matter to Thana, who was still recovering from the shock. We then made our way to the hotel's lobby, had a cup of coffee with Pal, who later went his way.
Following the unforeseen encounter with the old boss, I was left to marvel at who had told him where I was staying. Coincidentally, Thana said that he had recognized one of his bouncers.
"One of the guys is called Tomboy", he claimed.
Apparently Tomboy was a big gangster, and his brother an even bigger one. I called some friends back home to find out more about them.
"Do you know who this guy Tomboy is?" I asked them.
"Yeah, we know him very well", they answered. "What's the problem?"
"Tomboy and Pal came to my hotel room in Shah Alam. I'll give you ten thousand dollars if you figure out who tipped them off on where I was lodged".
It was not a matter of money. I owed Pal and I would have settled my debt with him. But who the fuck tipped him off? My friends never came back to me with an answer. On the following Monday, Pal got someone to call me and I went to pay my outstanding balance to one of his runners. After settling my debt, I returned to Singapore while Pal remained in Malaysia like a hunted foe. Two weeks later I received a phone call.
"Hello Wilson, this is Pal", he said in an unusually friendly tone. "Can I borrow 30 thousand from you?"
"Who told you that I was staying in Shah Alam?" I asked him. "This is from man to man, I'm not going to go after him".
"Ah Blur was the one who gave me your details", he said.
Dan.
I found it difficult to believe him. I thought that he was just trying to remove the actual snitch from the scene by diverting my attention to Dan. I couldn't accept the fact that Dan had done something like that to me, although he was effectively the only one who knew where I would be staying.
"What about the 30 thousand?" asked Pal. "Can I borrow them from you?"
"OK Pal", I told him, "let me see what I can do for you. I'll try to arrange something and get back to you asap. You just wait for my call".
I turned my phone off and changed the SIM card and that was the very last time that I heard from Pal.
CHAPTER XI
Unsung hero
Different people adopt different methods for match-fixing. Some move in as sponsors, take over a football club, insert players of their choice in the lineup, then dictate the results. Some provide gambling credit to professional players and officials then, when these begin to lose money, suggest that fixing matches may be the only solution to settle the bill. Others simply approach players or referees, win their confidence and ask: "Do you want to do business?"
Ante and Milan, two German brothers of Croatian descent, were masters of match-fixing; they owned a Berlin coffee shop called Café King where they invited players, referees and granted them access to a betting website.
"Fuck", thought footballers and officials as they sat in front of the computer screen, "this is my business. I am professional in this sport, who else can predict the outcome of a match better than me?"
But once they started wagering, they could not take their eyes off the screen; they ended up glued to the betting sites, like children to a video-game; and this was real money that they were playing with, not rag dolls. They would bet and bet until they got addicted. Once they started to lose, their stakes climbed higher and higher in the desperate attempt to win their money back, landing them yet deeper and deeper in shit. Respected officials like Robert Hoyzer used to patronize Café King; I was told that he was indebted close to one million euro after spending some time in the coffee shop. When you owe that much money, if you have the influence to fix a result, you'll fix it. All one has to do is whisper softly in your ear: "Do you want to place 100 thousand euro on your next match? I will bet for you. Here is your 100 thousand and here is mine. You call th
e shots and decide who is going to win: the choice is yours".
Through their novel approach to match-fixing, Ante and Milan had become so influential that they could fix a mixed parlay. In a mixed parlay, one has to predict the outcome of three or more matches at once, and the brothers could do it. They allegedly fixed World Cup qualifiers, UEFA Champions League and Europa League matches, as well as domestic league games in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Turkey, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and Canada. I never met them but I remember reading about them while in prison sometime in 2005 and thinking: "Fuck, these guys are good".
The two brothers were not betting through Dan, they had their own on-line gambling account and didn't need a betting house. If you fix a German league match, a single click is worth anywhere from 20 to 35 thousand dollars. Within five minutes from kick off, you can punt one million dollars on any match. If Ante and Milan were ever linked to Dan, it happened at a very late stage; I don't know if and to what extent they knew one another. I do recall that there was a Slovenian who was convicted together with them named Dragan. He was allegedly in touch with Admir, but this is a secret that he and the others will not surrender so easily. The whole match-fixing business is clandestine. You have to lie low, avoid throwing your weight around and showing off your connections; there is no need to parade what you have or haven't done.
Match-fixing is also open to new ideas and I, for one, often come up with good ones. Sometime in 2009 I began being weary of approaching players and having to rely solely on their commitment to obtain the results that I wanted. Many footballers will agree to fix but, as the game kicks off, will get carried away and stop listening to you; they neither invest in a fixed match nor stand to lose a penny from a fix gone wrong. However, if the correct result happens to come their way they will, of course, bolt to you and demand their cut. That's why I began targeting referees.
"Fuck", I thought, "I can get in touch with a Football Association and lend them my match officials. If I can place my referee and linesmen on the pitch then I can easily ask them for three goals. Just three individuals to bribe, that's it, end of story".
My first target was, of course, Bahrain. In August 2009 I arranged a mini three-nation triangular tournament between them, Kenya and Iran just to content the Bahrain FA. The gambling websites were offering bets on the first match between Bahrain and Kenya but I didn't have any Kenyan players on my payroll at that stage so I just sat back and enjoyed the game. The plan was to convince the Bahrain FA to use my referees in their national team's matches.
The second game was supposed to feature Kenya vs Iran but a sudden and inexplicable dispute within the Kenya FA over appearance fees caused the match to be canceled.
Then, on August 31st, 2009, Bahrain was to play against Iran in the third and final match of the tournament. I sent Danny to Bahrain to run the show for me and arranged for match officials from Eastern Europe to officiate the game. Our main referee, a man from Bosnia Herzegovina, was at the helm of the operations on the field. Murugan, who still cultivated his connections in Bosnia dating back to the time when he had worked for Bryan, helped me recruit the Bosnian referee for the match.
The volume offered for games such as these was usually pretty small so I needed a betting house to maximize my profits. Even though I had fallen out with Ah Kang, I decided to call him up and convince him to place my wagers on the match. Ah Kang agreed after some hesitation.
Bahrain defeated Iran 4-2. Two penalties were awarded in the late stages of the match, the second of which after nine minutes of injury time. The referee did a perfect job and I paid him an extra ten thousand US dollars for his intrepid commitment. After the game, I called Ah Kang to collect my win but he came up with a bullshit story about not being able to bet the amount that I had ordered.
"I could wager only a portion of it", he claimed.
I suspected that Ah Kang had probably decided to use the inside scoop on the match to place his own money instead of mine. I am a seasoned campaigner in this field and I can tell when I'm being lied to. He fucked me up and I promised myself that this would really be the last time that I did business with him.
A few days went by and I had another international friendly match on my hands: Jordan vs Malaysia in Amman; I flew a Kenyan referee over to officiate the game. He had been introduced to me by my contact in the Kenya FA. The usual procedure was that one FA would write to the other requesting the use of one of their referees. We had our people on the inside who were ready to propose and approve the match officials that we wanted; everything was perfectly stage-managed but somehow the news of the match leaked out.
"Wilson is fixing this game", was the word in the market.
Every donkey in Singapore tried to jump my wagon thinking that we were going for a total of three goals; some were so confident that they placed their wagers before the match had even kicked off. The odds went crazy: three goals were paying a mere three dollars for every ten dollars wagered. I decided to make a turnabout and go for Under. I called the ref.
"Our plan is to go Under", I told him. "Kill the fucking game. An accident can happen: one goal is OK, but not two. No penalties whatsoever; even if there are blatant ones, just play on. Tell the linesmen that they are on extra duty: everything is off-side. Just raise the flag every time the attackers are in line with the defenders".
The match ended 0-0 and I won my bet. On the next day, an official from the Jordanian FA called me.
"Where did you get that referee and his linesmen?" he inquired.
"What am I supposed to do?" I answered. "They are all FIFA-accredited. I asked the CAF for a referee and linesmen and this is who they came up with. What can I do?"
It was just a cover story, I hadn't asked CAF for the referee or the linesmen; I had hand-picked them myself with the help of the Kenya FA. When I needed a ref, I would fill out the forms for the match officials that I wanted to use, print them out, then send them to the Football Association. That's it. I had patiently built my network from one ref to the next. After speaking with the Jordanian FA, I weighed the bullshit story that I had fed them and reckoned that having someone within CAF could actually make my life easier.
In September 2009, I sent Danny to Ghana for their 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Sudan. He linked up with a Ghanaian by the name of Sadat who helped him approach and speak to some of the Sudanese players.
While Danny was busy building a link with Sudan, I was on my way to Malawi for another World Cup qualifier featuring the home side against Guinea. I landed in Lilongwe, Malawi, on the eve of the match but didn't have sufficient time to get enough players on my side so I abandoned the idea of fixing it. While in Malawi, through the offices of Rosemary, the Zimbabwe FA executive, I met with a man called Felix in a local hotel. Felix was a football agent and Rosemary had anticipated that he could be useful to our cause.
"I organize international fixtures", I introduced myself. "I've already invited Zimbabwe and Lesotho to play in Asia. If you know people in the Malawi FA, we could bring foreign teams to Malawi to play international friendly matches".
Felix ran a legitimate business, representing a sportswear company or something like that, but was also very knowledgeable about match-fixing, so we exchanged views.
"Do you know any referees from Malawi?" I asked.
"I'd have to work on that", he replied. "Give me some time. Right now I am busy working as a consultant for the Congolese club Tout Puissant Mazembe (TPM)".
TPM was playing in the CAF Champions League so I immediately considered that something could be arranged with Les Corbeaux, the Ravens, in the future and expressed my hopes to Felix.
"I'll try to speak to the TPM players if you want", he said, "but I can't promise you anything right now".
Felix and I shook hands and I was off to Pretoria, South Africa, from where, in less than a week's time, I arranged for the Lesotho team to be invited for an international friendly match in Malaysia. I met a Lesotho FA official at a Pretoria train
station where he provided me with a team-list and copies of the passports of all the members of the delegation that were going to travel. I then sent a letter to the Lesotho FA confirming that tickets for 25 people had been booked. This time around I didn't need a cover story, Lesotho already knew what was required of them and that, even if I wasn't going to be physically present, they were going to be well taken care of in Malaysia.
With the help of Rosemary, I then booked a meeting in Johannesburg with a high-ranking executive from the Botswana FA named Peter. Rosemary had sung my praises to him and he had expressed the desire to meet me. Peter dropped in to my hotel and we sat down to discuss possible business opportunities. He told me that Botswana had been invited to China for an exhibition match to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic at the end of September. Unfortunately, the Botswana FA was broke and the Chinese weren't about to take on the bills of their transfer.
"OK", I said to Peter, "I'll finance the tickets for your delegation but can you give me your cooperation?"
"What do you mean?" he seemed perplexed.
"I need a coach who will listen to me", I explained, "and who will hand-pick players that are prepared to follow his instructions and give me the result that I want in China".
"I'll do that", said Peter, "but just bear in mind that I am not going to be traveling with the delegation".
After striking a deal with Botswana, the time had come to leave South Africa, so I flew to London to visit some family friends; nothing related to match-fixing.
Malaysia and Lesotho were set to play on the afternoon of September 11th, 2009, in Selangor, Malaysia. Thana and Anthony were running the show for me there. I was still in London while my money for this match, 400 thousand dollars in cash, was in the trusted hands of Rajendra Prasad, who was tasked with placing my bets in Singapore. I told Thana and Anthony to instruct the Lesotho players to concede two goals during the first half of the match. Since I didn't trust Ah Kang anymore, I was wagering through another betting house owned by a Chinese guy called Ah Tong. Ah Tong had worked for Ah Kang then had decided to set up his own business and had invited me to place my bets with him.
Kelong Kings: Confessions of the world's most prolific match-fixer Page 26
