THE HAGUE — Criminal organizations have infiltrated the highest levels of European and international soccer, threatening the integrity of the sport, global law enforcement officials said Monday as they disclosed the results of a 19-month investigation that indicated that hundreds of people had been involved in match-fixing.
At least 425 people from more than 15 countries — including club and match officials, and current and former players — are suspected of conspiring in nearly 700 matches in recent years on behalf of Asian criminal syndicates that made millions of dollars in profits by betting on the results, they said.
Those matches included qualifying games for the World Cup and for the European Cup, and two Champions League matches, including one in England.
“This is a sad day for European football, and more evidence of the corrupting influence of organized crime,” said Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol, which helped coordinate the investigation among European Union member states, Interpol and non-European nations.
Citing the doping scandal that has undermined public trust and interest in cycling, Wainwright warned that the problem must be tackled quickly or soccer would lose the trust of the public.
In all, 680 matches have been identified as suspect, officials said, including 300 outside Europe, primarily in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
It was not clear how many of the matches identified were previously known or newly discovered.
Officials declined to identify any of the teams or individuals involved in the investigations, citing the need to guard the confidentiality of police procedures.
The officials, speaking to journalists at Europol headquarters, said that a joint team was created in July 2011 after investigators in several European countries came to realize that there was a major overlap between suspects in separate match-fixing inquiries.
A single criminal group, based in Asia, is behind most of the matches identified in the investigations, Europol and Interpol officials said, and an international arrest warrant has been issued seeking the extradition of the ringleader to Europe to face fraud and bribery charges.
Europol did not publicly identify the ringleader of the gang, but several knowledgeable law enforcement officials later said on condition of anonymity that it was a man based in Singapore known as Dan Tan. Tan has been implicated in match-fixing cases dating to 1999, at least, the officials said.
Asked about the level of international cooperation Europol was getting from other national authorities involved in enforcement of the warrant, Wainwright said, “I’m satisfied that Interpol is in active dialogue” with the other parties. “It’s important that all international arrest warrants are pursued.”
The officials repeatedly dodged questions from reporters seeking to learn just how many of the suspected match-fixing cases they announced Monday were new.
German prosecutors, for example, have previously identified dozens of cases, and it was not clear how many of those were included in the tally. The country with the most cases identified by Europol was Turkey, with 79. Germany was next with 70, followed by Switzerland, with 41. The agency also reported cases in Belgium, Croatia, Austria, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Canada.
The breadth of the investigation inspired strong reactions from global fans. Even as the news conference was still going on, fans took to social media to speculate on which matches might have been fixed. And while officials would not offer specifics, that did not stop fans — particularly those of the English game — from guessing at the possibilities, with the only certainty being that the English Champions League match occurred in the last three or four years.
While the great majority of suspect European matches identified in the investigation took place outside Britain, the notion that corruption has been identified in British soccer, home of the world’s most popular league, will reverberate globally.
“It would be naïve and complacent of those in the U.K. to think such a criminal conspiracy does not involve the English game,” Wainwright said.
Investigation Finds Suspected Fixing in 680 Soccer Matches
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Investigation Finds Suspected Fixing in 680 Soccer Matches
