Singaporean jailed in Finland over match-fixing

[Akechi Mitsuhide]

Jul 19, 2011

Singaporean jailed in Finland over match-fixing

The court said Perumal (above) was part of a group that tried to fix matches played by the Rovaniemi club between June 2008 and February 2011. Perumal bribed seven Zambian and two Georgian players. -- PHOTO: AP

HELSINKI - A FINNISH court has sentenced a Singaporean man to two years in prison and gave nine soccer players suspended sentences after finding them guilty of match fixing.

The Lapland district court said Wilson Raj Perumal paid players up to 20,000 euros (S$34,500) per match and received up to 50,000 euros, in addition to some of the betting profits, each time the results were fixed.

'Perumal's sentence was toughened by the fact that he had planned his actions and that he has acted as a member of international organised group doing betting scams,' the court said in a statement on Tuesday.

Perumal was part of a group that tried to fix matches played by the Rovaniemi club between June 2008 and February 2011. He also bribed seven Zambian and two Georgian players.

The court said Perumal had cooperated with authorities. -- REUTERS

 

[chowka]

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S'pore match-fixer in Hungarian custody after release in Finland​

Released in Finland, S'pore match-fixer now in Hungarian custody​

Published on Mar 7, 2012​

By Sanjay Nair​

Convicted Singaporean match-fixer Wilson Raj Perumal was last week released from jail in Finland, only to be extradited to Hungary, where he is expected to face more football corruption charges.​

After that, he may have to make a trip to South Africa, where he has been linked to more match fixes.​

Mr Chris Eaton, security chief at world football governing body Fifa, told The Straits Times yesterday: 'Perumal has left fingerprints and footprints all over the world.'​

On Monday last week, the 45-year-old Perumal was handed over to the Hungarian authorities under custody, after serving 12 months of his two-year prison term in Finland​

Read the full story in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times.​

 

[Sephiroth]

Football: Interpol expects Italy fixing arrests in Singapore

Singaporean Wilson Raj Perumal sits in the Lapland district court in Rovaniemi in this June 22, 2011 file photo. He was sentenced to two years in prison and gave nine soccer players suspended sentences after finding them guilty of match fixing.

AFP
Thursday, Nov 29, 2012

SINGAPORE - Interpol expects imminent arrests in Singapore linked to Italy's mushrooming 'Calcioscommesse' football match-fixing scandal, a report said Thursday.

The global police body's chief Ronald Noble said more links to the Asian city-state had been revealed following this week's arrest in Italy of Serbian footballer Almir Gegic, after more than a year on the run.

"In the near future, Singaporeans will be reading about arrests made here in Singapore of people linked to illegal betting or match-fixing either in Singapore or outside Singapore," Noble told the Straits Times.

He added that Gegic, suspected of involvement in Calcioscommesse (football betting), had links to Singapore's Tan Seet Eng or Dan Tan, "one of the leaders of an organised crime group" who is reportedly also wanted by Italian police.

Noble was speaking during a conference on match-fixing in Singapore, which has been identified as a hub for football corruption affecting leagues across the globe.

In one of the most notorious cases, Singapore's Wilson Raj Perumal, an alleged associate of Dan Tan who was suspected of rigging games in several countries, was jailed in Finland in 2011.

Calcioscommesse whistle-blower Simone Farina, a former left-back with Italian lower-league side Grubbio, told the Interpol conference a former team-mate offered him 200,000 euros ($259,131) to throw a match last year.

"I was told that this amount was guaranteed because of his support from an organisation based here in Singapore," Farina said in an address on Wednesday.

Nineteen people were arrested during raids in May, including some senior figures in Italian football. Juventus manager Antonio Conte is currently serving a four-month ban over the affair.

Indicating the scale and extent of the problem, in recent weeks Zimbabwe disbanded its national team in the wake of a 2009 scandal - also linked to Singapore - and Czech authorities probed fixing claims in its top league.

"The size of the illegal gambling market has been estimated at close to 500 billion euros per year," Noble told the Singapore conference.

"The sizes of the bets can be in the tens, and even hundreds of thousands of euros. There are estimates that the large Asian bookmakers have revenues on the same scale as the Coca-Cola company."

 

[red amoeba]

cool..after annabel cheong, he made singapore appear in the headlines again....y do we need YOG when we have folks like these?

 

[rolleyes]

'Meddle again and you'll be killed'

December 24, 2012 - 1:43am

By: Zaihan Mohamed Yusof Dilenjit Singh

The South African refereeing official foiled a match-fixing attempt.

But in return he received a phone call threatening his life.

With the fallout from a Fifa report into the rigging of South Africa’s matches just before the 2010 World Cup growing, The New Paper has learnt details of what transpired ahead of the first World Cup held in Africa.

The dossier by Fifa resulted in the suspension of several South African Football Association (Safa) bigwigs, such as and prompted a national criminal investigation.

Not surprisingly, Singaporean Wilson Raj Perumal and his cabal of match-fixers have again been named in the Fifa report.

A source familiar with the investigation told TNP the report includes details of how the convicted match-fixer – who has served time locally and in Finland – made a death threat to a senior South African Football Association (Safa) refereeing official after the country’s 1-0 win against Denmark in a friendly match.