Wilson Raj Perumal, the world's most prolific criminal match-fixer

This story initially appeared in the May 28 World Football Issue of ESPN The Magazine. But it makes for interesting reading now given the backdrop of the Europol ‘fixing’ scandal. It all began when a man from Singapore walked into the central police station of Rovaniemi, Finland. The man told officers that another Singaporean, Wilson Raj Perumal, was in Rovaniemi on a false passport. One thing led to another and soon the entire operation was in the open but as Europol revealed, there is still no stopping it. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Chinese criminal organizations, known as triads, seized on that opening to fund a global match-fixing operation and manipulate bookies around the world. Why was China ground zero? The country’s booming economy and culture of risk-taking has fostered the world’s most rabid gambling market. But to take advantage of soccer betting worldwide, Chinese triads needed emissaries to plant match-fixing schemes abroad – men fluent in English who could travel on a trusted passport. So the triads tapped criminal organizations in Singapore, Asia’s westernized business hub and a country perceived as far less corrupt than China. From the ranks of the Singapore syndicate emerged the smoothest operator of them all: Wilson Raj Perumal. A handsome, charismatic former petty criminal and runner for the syndicate, Perumal found his calling as a globe-trotting fixer. He didn’t have to look hard for targets: Take 10,000 teams and multiply by the number of players per squad – then add referees, club officials and federation administrators. To a skilled fixer, almost anyone could be had for the right price. Using agents like Perumal, Chinese and Singaporean syndicates were so successful at fixing matches, they called into doubt the very integrity of the game.