LONDON: Two men with Singaporean nationality suspected of fixing matches in lower-league English football were remanded in custody by magistrates yesterday.
The men, alleged to be members of a Singapore-based betting syndicate, were among seven people arrested this week in an investigation by the recently-formed National Crime Agency (NCA).
Chann Sankaran, a 33-year-old Singapore national, and Krishna Sanjey Ganeshan, a 43-year-old with dual British and Singapore nationality, were remanded in custody until December 13 by magistrates in Cannock, central England.
Sankaran and Ganeshan have been accused of conspiring to defraud bookmakers by influencing the course of football matches and placing bets on them between November 1 and November 26 this year.
The maximum sentence for this offence is 10 years’ imprisonment.
The NCA said their investigation was ongoing.
Thursday’s Daily Telegraph newspaper said an undercover investigation by its reporters had triggered the probe by the NCA, Britain’s equivalent of the FBI.
No teams in England’s lucrative Premier League are believed to be involved in the probe.
Meanwhile a notorious Singaporean football match-fixer denied any links to the alleged plot in England after a suspect named him as his “boss”, a report said Friday.
Wilson Raj Perumal, a convicted fixer who is under police protection in Hungary, told Singapore’s New Paper he played no part in the scam -- although he admitted he had full knowledge of it.
In the videotaped Daily Telegraph sting a Singaporean suspect says he is working for Perumal.
But Perumal, a self-confessed arch-fixer who says he used to collaborate with alleged Singaporean mastermind Dan Tan, insisted he was not involved.
“He (the suspect) was acting on his own. He was set up,” he told the New Paper via email. AFP
