Eight suspected bookies held over world youth matches
Eight suspected bookies held over world youth matches
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysian police have arrested eight
suspected bookies during the world youth football championship
matches here, reports said yesterday.
A special police task force has been deployed during the
three-week tournament to counter bookmaking, which is illegal but
widespread in Malaysia. Match fixing in local games is a common
occurrence.
Police believe they crippled three illegal football bookmaking
syndicates raking in six million ringgit (US$2.4 million) a match
with the arrest of the eight in the northern state of Penang.
They also seized five cellular phones, four telephones,
newspaper cuttings of football schedules, 97 slips of football
match results and a Copa America football schedule, The Star
newspaper reported here.
Penang-state criminal investigation department's deputy police
chief Osman Abu Bakar said the syndicates each accepted about two
million ringgit bets a match for the Youth World Cup and Copa
America 1997 championships.
Police are also investigating whether the suspects, aged
between 24 and 65, were involved in other football matches.
Osman said the syndicates were believed to be inter-linked and
had networks in the southern state of Johor, northern state of
Perak, Kedah and in Sarawak on Borneo island and in Thailand.
No charges of match-fixing have been laid.
Asian Football Confederation Secretary-General Peter Velappan
expressed satisfaction over the high level of vigilance on the
part of the Malaysian police.
"We congratulate the police on their good work," he said.
Meanwhile, in Sabah, police arrested two suspected bookies who
were taking bets for the youth football championships semifinals.
Sabah deputy criminal investigation chief Lau Hong Soon said
the suspects, aged 41 and 45, were picked up at their premises by
a team of police officers.
The two suspects were being detained for questioning, police
said.
The suspects were believed to have taken bets for Wednesday's
Youth World Cup semifinal matches between Argentina and Ireland
played in Sarawak and between Ghana played in Shah Alam.
They were believed to have taken bets for youth football
championships matches although they are not suspected to be
involved in match-fixing.
Malaysian police have so far arrested 15 people alleged for
bookmaking.
The under-20 tournament, which began June 16, ends July 5.
Two years ago more than 100 footballers and officials were
banned by football's world governing body FIFA for being involved
in one of the biggest match-rigging scandals in the sport's
history.
Malaysian bookmakers also attempted to fix matches in last
year's Tiger Cup in Singapore.