The Big Fix (20 page)

 

CHAPTER 37

I
t was early September, another hot evening in Doha, when Chris Eaton's phone rang. Someone was calling from Australia. Eaton didn't want to wake his wife and infant boy, so he stepped out onto the balcony. Overlooking his “fake Venice,” he answered. Two cops were phoning from Australia's Victoria Police, his old department. They weren't interested in reminiscing. They explained that they had recently begun an investigation into a series of manipulated soccer matches in Melbourne. All of the games involved a club from Australia's second division.

Eaton listened as the cops described the bits of information that they had so far collected. Wire transfers. Player contact with suspected handlers. Provocative telephone dialogue. And a dreadful win-­loss record for the club in question. Eaton had heard it all before. He told the cops that they were on the right track, following the proper instincts. But he understood from their line of questioning that they had no grasp of international match-­fixing. How could they have? Eaton well knew how the crime of fixing could confuse the uninitiated, just as it had confused him at the World Cup in South Africa. Over several hours, he meticulously explained the greater global context, how fixing and betting fraud operated symbiotically, and who was ultimately in control. As was normally the case when Eaton pulled back the curtain, he listened as the Victoria cops worried over the morass before them.

The conversation drew to a close. One of the investigators had a final question for Eaton. And now the tables turned. Now it was Eaton's turn to be shocked. He instantly realized that events in Melbourne amounted to no simple case at all, but perhaps the most significant match-­fixing investigation there had ever been, the one that might finally spur governments to action.

A
t the close of the 2012–2013 season, the East London club Hornchurch was relegated to the Isthmian League's Premier Division, the seventh level of English soccer. Hornchurch had posted a record of 11-­20-­11. Sportradar had recognized suspicious betting patterns for some of Hornchurch's games, and the company trained an eye on the club's activity on behalf of its client, England's Football Association.

On June 22, 2013, a Hornchurch striker, Lewis Smith, signed with Dartford, in Conference Premier, England's fifth division. Sportradar technicians, on alert to all activity related to Hornchurch, watched Smith move. Just two weeks later, curiously, he moved again. On July 8, Smith left Dartford for Australia, joining the Southern Stars.

Located in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne, the Southern Stars played in the first division of the Victorian State League, which was the second level of Australian soccer. Considering how Australian rules football dominates locally, this second division of Australian soccer is equivalent to England's third or fourth division, or lower. Players in the Victorian State League are amateur. They do not receive salaries. They play on neglected fields, before sparse crowds that often number in the teens.

Yet a group of English players had found the opportunity to play for the Southern Stars attractive enough to relocate to Australia. A handful of English players joined the Southern Stars roster last season. They had little positive effect on the club's fortunes. By the time Lewis arrived, the Stars had played twelve contests, losing ten and drawing two. On the Stars, Lewis joined his former Hornchurch teammates Reiss Noel, a defender, and Joe Woolley, a goalkeeper. In the ensuing five matches, the Southern Stars drew once and lost four times, three of these losses resulting in 4–0 scores. After seventeen matches, the Southern Stars had a record of 0-­14-­3.

There may not have been many spectators at the Southern Stars matches, but Sportradar was watching. Employees noticed suspicious odds and line patterns in the Asian handicap market for Southern Stars games, the betting-­world evidence of match manipulation. Sportradar had recently signed a contract with Football Federation Australia, and shortly after Lewis's arrival, company executives notified their new clients of this suspicious activity. Sportradar had done this before, alerting clients to suspected fraud. In almost all instances, the client federation had chosen to handle the manipulation internally, avoiding public scandal. Instead, officials at Football Federation Australia notified the Victoria Police.

The state of Victoria was one of few legal jurisdictions in the world that was prepared to combat a live match-­fixing ring. Because of its global isolation, and the fact that soccer was underdeveloped domestically, Australia, as far as industry experts could tell, had yet to be inflicted with match manipulation. But from numerous international news reports, Australian police and prosecutors understood that match-­fixing was a blossoming phenomenon, likely with time to immigrate their way. The local government passed legislation that classified match-­fixing as a felony, with a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. While elsewhere in the world, police and prosecutors hardly knew how to charge fixing suspects—­with money laundering? business fraud?—­Victoria had made things plain. And the severity of the sentencing guidelines automatically relaxed the probable cause that police would be required to show the judiciary in order to enact wiretaps and other invasive surveillance techniques. This would accelerate the process of evidence gathering. The English players didn't know it, but they had flown south into a trap set especially for them.

After speaking with the football federation, then consulting with Sportradar, Victoria Police investigators combed through the immigration records of the Southern Stars players. They were able to establish a group of English imports who traveled together in and out of Australia during the season, on vacations to Bali and assorted Asian destinations. They easily located photos that the players had taken of themselves in nightclubs and on beaches in these places, then posted to Facebook and Instagram. Along with data that Sportradar had provided, this was enough to gain legal approval to record the communications of the Southern Stars players and staff.

When cops began listening to phone conversations between the players, their coach, and several other unidentified men of Southeast Asian descent who were hanging around the team, they realized that they were in over their heads. They knew that they were on to something, and possibly something big. The first cops who engineered a successful case under Victoria's new match-­fixing statute would be due professional recognition. But the investigators working the Southern Stars case didn't know how fixing worked and how betting markets could be manipulated. They wanted to be certain that they were focusing on the right information. In need of greater context and understanding, they called an expert.

Chris Eaton told them all he could. But the cops wanted to know more. One of the investigators asked Eaton: “Do you know who ‘the king' is?” The cops said that while they listened to phone conversations, they heard the coach, the players, and the handlers frequently refer to someone as “the king.”

As Eaton considered this information, one of the cops added: “There have been a lot of calls to and from a number in Hungary.”

Eaton's mind cleared. He had only one thought. “The king?” he asked himself. “The
kelong
king? It's Perumal. It has to be. There could be no one else. He's still fixing. We've got him.”

T
he deputy superintendent of the Victoria Police, Graham Ashton, is a large, ungainly sort of man, bald and stern. He made a name for himself during the investigation into the 2002 terrorist bombings in Bali, which killed 202 ­people. Ashton supervised the reconstitution of an obliterated SIM card from a phone that the bombers had used to trigger one of the deadly explosions. This piece of evidence led investigators to the perpetrators. Ashton brought a similar thoroughness to the Southern Stars operation.

Scrutiny of financial records revealed that the Southern Stars players had received wire transfers of less than $60,000 in total, lower-­division players traditionally costing little to control. Telephone intercepts suggested that the Stars coach, Zia Younan, augmented this sum at the conclusion of each successful fix. Investigators learned that Younan had approached Southern Stars management in October 2012. Younan had played professionally in Australia and had since transitioned into coaching. His proposition to the Stars: he didn't want a salary, just full control over the roster. Like many financially strapped clubs and federations across international soccer, Stars management readily agreed to a the proposition, dubious as it was.

Ashton allowed the games—­and alleged fixes—­to continue, in order to collect evidence that would impress a judge toward conviction. Investigators posed as fans on the sidelines, using directional microphones to pick up chatter between the players. Cops sank microphones into the soil of the playing field. They even placed microphones in the frame of the goalpost. During a match, they listened as one of the defenders told Joe Woolley, the Southern Stars goaltender: “Let the next one in.” As the club continued its downward spiral, the players were unaware that police were cataloguing their every move. “There was some interesting body language,” says one of the investigators. “You're not supposed to high-­five when you lose.”

The goal of the fixes varied, depending on the betting market. In some matches, according to recorded conversations, the fixers planned a draw. In one match, they instructed the players to construct a scoreless first half, then allow four goals in the second half. When this game failed to adhere to the plan, ending 3–0, the phone lines activated. The impetus for the calls, according to investigators, was Hungary.

Wilson Perumal would have had a good reason for cracking the whip. Investigators claim that he was betting up to $500,000 on the outcomes. Ashton estimates that the fixing ring cleared roughly $2 million during the Southern Stars operation.

A significant payout came on August 18, when the Southern Stars faced Northcote City, a club from Thornbury, a community on the outskirts of Melbourne. When the two teams took the field at John Cain Memorial Park, in Thornbury, the home club's fortunes were the opposite of the visitor's. With a record of 10-­2-­5, Northcote City was in first place in the Victorian State League. It would finish the season 13-­2-­6, winning the league championship. The Southern Stars were a heavy underdog.

At the start of the match, the Asian bookmaker SBOBET listed Northcote as the favorite to win by three or more goals. On the Asian totals market, the over-­under was given as 4.5. As the match progressed into the first half, SBOBET altered the line, the odds, and the over-­under to reflect the game conditions and the action it was receiving, as was customary.

There was no scoring through the early portion of the first half. Naturally, the odds of a Northcote City win by three or more goals increased, as there was less and less time for the club to reach this total. Likewise, the line changed. But the lines and the odds increased too quickly than they logically should have.

In the twenty-­sixth minute of the match, SBOBET was listing the Southern Stars as heavy favorites to avoid defeat by two or more goals. This meant that if the club lost by one goal, or if it drew or won the match, then this bet would be a winning bet. At the same moment, the odds for the over-­under, the line of which had dropped from 4.5 to 3.5, were suspiciously distant from where they should have been. Instead of 1.96 (a 51 percent likelihood), which were the logical odds, the under traded at 1.34 (74.6 percent). What did this mean? It meant that someone was placing so much money on an outcome of three goals or fewer that SBOBET had altered the odds so that a winning $1 bet on the under would pay only 34 cents.

This discrepant tendency persisted throughout the first half. The starkest example of it appeared in the forty-­fourth minute, just before halftime. The match was still scoreless. By this point, SBOBET had reduced the over-­under line to two goals even. The odds on the under now stood at 1.25 (an 80 percent likelihood), instead of the logical 3.09 (32.4 percent). SBOBET was continuing to reduce the odds in order to protect the book against the heavy action it was taking on the under bet. At odds of 1.25, a $1 bet would win just 25 cents.

By halftime, the betting that had initiated SBOBET's odds movements was complete, as the second-­half lines and odds adhered to norms. When the match ended, the Southern Stars and Northcote City playing to a 0–0 draw, the betting of the early first half paid out at the high odds under which it was placed.

Not every Southern Stars fix came through. Several Victoria cops claim that they listened in as Perumal scolded the players by phone. Investigators say that Perumal frequently phoned Segaran “Gerry” Gsubramaniam, a Malaysian who allegedly served as the local project manager, and that he routinely reprimanded him for bungled matches. Investigators also claim that Perumal spoke frequently with Younan, dictating the lineup for matches and providing specific instructions and strategy. Investigators traced calls to Jason Jo Lourdes, Perumal's old friend, and a man named Krishna Ganeshan, an established member of the Singapore syndicate. Information from Australia's Department of Immigration and Border Protection revealed that these two men traveled to and from Australia several times during the Stars season. Chris Eaton learned that Ganeshan spent long spells in Brunei, where he met with Crown Prince al-­Muhtadee Billah. The prince had once played goalkeeper for Brunei's Duli Pengiran Muda Mahkota club, and now he owned it. When Eaton learned of this development, he directed his subordinates to research ties between the Singapore syndicate and the Brunei royal family.