Mafia handed me £100k in Sainsbury’s bag to fix football matches…I’m haunted by chilling warning to players who refused

SPEEDING through London with £100,000 in cash in the footwell of his car, footballer Moses Swaibu knew he had just crossed over into the dark side of the beautiful game.

Moses had been paid by a foreign organised crime group to fix the match between his Conference side Bromley and Eastbourne.

And instead of feeling guilty, Moses was hungry for more. He was no longer a professional footballer, he was a professional match fixer.

He had the power to control score lines and make millions for overseas betting cartels.

Somehow he had gone from being named Crystal Palace’s Young Player of the year, to trusted lieutenant in an organised crime group rigging football matches and making vast sums of money by betting on the results.

But his actions were going to send shockwaves through the English football league – and land Moses and other players in prison.

Swaibu was jailed for 16 months in 2015 following an undercover newspaper investigation into match fixing.

He and another player, Delroy Facey were convicted of conspiracy to commit bribery following a trial in Birmingham.

Two businessmen – Chann Sankaran and Krisna Ganeshan – along with footballer Michael Boateng, were also convicted of attempting to fix football games at an earlier trial.

Moses, 35, now works to help prevent young players getting involved in illegal betting and has shared his story for a new BBC Sounds podcast, Confessions of a Match Fixer.

“I drove across London with piles of cash in my car and learned how to identify which footballers could be made to throw a match,” he says. “I betrayed the game I loved.”

Experts say match-fixing is not a victimless crime. The organised crime gangs behind the scams are often involved in drugs, prostitution and other criminal activities which the money feeds into.

Moses adds: “I went from promising youth player to working with some pretty dangerous people. I got in deep not realising how dangerous this world could be.

“The thing is. It was only when I was in prison when I realised what I had done.”

Moses grew up in Croydon after his Ugandan refugee parents split and he moved in with his dad.

But his super-strict dad would lock the door of the house if Moses wasn’t back from school at a certain time each day, which meant Moses would spend his nights riding night buses or sleeping on a neighbour’s sofa.

€60,000 in duffel bag

Football saved him when he joined a local youth team and was scouted by Crystal Palace and offered a two year contract.

But instead of fulfilling his early potential, changes of management and his slight physique meant Moses slipped down the leagues and ended up at Lincoln City.

Delroy Facey was his teammate at Lincoln and best friend. But strange things started to happen. 

Moses explains: “People were turning up to the training ground wanting to know where he was. And there was another thing too. Delroy would go around asking players for loans.”

The players were staying in a hotel for an away match against Northampton when Delroy called Moses and a couple of others down to his room.

“There was a white guy standing up, tall well-built,” says Moses. Delroy was sitting on the bed. Then Del opened the duffle bag and there was 60k in Euros. I was thinking in that moment, what the hell is going on? €60,000 if we lose tomorrow we can split it.

“In my eye line I was looking at this guy. He looked like something stereotypical you see in a film. He is like a scary Russian bad guy from a film. 

“He was like, don’t worry, no pressure. If you guys get the score right tomorrow everybody is happy and you can go away. Does anyone want to take it? Sleep with it and let me know how you feel.

“I am looking at this guy and he is like who wants to sleep with the money? I’ve never seen that type of money in my life let alone in that moment.”

But Moses and the others decided not to get involved and the money was returned to the Russian.

However that was not going to be Moses’ last experience of match-fixing.

‘Any means necessary’

He made another move to conference side Bromley. After an initial great start, the team started to struggle, Moses had disagreements with the manager and his girlfriend was pregnant. Money suddenly mattered much, much more to him.

In August 2012, he was approached by a team-mate inviting him to a meeting with match fixers. Moses knew there could be £60k in it for him and he needed five players – and he knew he had to approach the vulnerable ones.

He says: “I knew going into that meeting there could be £60k that I would be willing to take by any means necessary.”

They met at the Mayfair Hotel – Moses, his team-mates, a recently retired player from another team and the foreign match fixer with a translator.

“The translator was very specific with what he wanted,” he recalls. “We need you guys to lose 2-0 in the first half only. So whenever those goals come, just make sure it is 2-0 in the first half. After that, go and play normal. Whilst we were given instructions, he gave us the bag. 

“I remember at that time we were already getting brown paper bags from Bromley with our wages. I felt the weight and I was like ‘sh**.’ The translator said keep the money, if you don’t want to fix the game, keep the money. Thank you for coming to the meeting. We all took the bag and he was like tomorrow let us know whether you guys want to do it.”

The guys had been given £5k each. And they were set to make much more – the players were set to pocket £100k between the five of them if they got the result.

“For the fix to be successful we had to be 2-0 down by half time. I remember that game like it was yesterday. You know when you play some away games there is something in the air, floodlights are lit, pitch is flat, but all I can think about was that if this is actually true, there is still an element of this is too good to be true.”

The team got the result the match fixers wanted and, after the match, Moses got a call from the syndicate’s middleman to go and get their money.

“He looked like a student, and the money came in Sainsbury’s bags,” he says. “I remember as he handed it over the car windows, he just put it in the footwell. I’m driving through London with £100,000 in the footwell.

“When I am driving back, obviously I have never had that amount of money in my possession ever. It wasn’t until I got back to the hotel and I saw the glint in everyone’s eyes. Remember they are thinking they are getting £20k, and I am like nah, I am taking a third of it.

“I quickly realised these lot ain’t really my friends. So why am I treating them like an equal. So I gave them some money and they were pissed off, like nah man you are ripping us off.

“I was like this is the way it is man. I asked them one question, I said if you want in, you have got to be 100, if not, this is going to happen with or without you.”

Soon Moses and the syndicate had cut out the middleman and he was dealing directly with the bosses.

They wanted to avoid the big higher league matches and concentrate on the lower leagues to avoid scrutiny, with high stakes bets being placed across Asia on matches between little-known English clubs.

I remember as he handed it over the car windows, he just put it in the footwell. I’m driving through London with £100,000 in the footwell.

Moses Swaibu

The syndicate recruited Moses to identify which players to approach to fix matches across the conference, and then to make payments to those players after they had done what they said they were going to do.

And Moses was good at it. He estimates he was helping his criminal bosses earn up to £1m a match – and Moses was loving it, not just the money, but the power too.

“It wasn’t a thrill, it was an addiction,” he says. “I was getting money fast and quick.”

Downfall

But if Moses was in denial about the criminality of his actions, he was soon to get a stark reminder.

In a chilling warning, some players who didn’t fix a game they were meant to were each given a bullet to take home.

“It didn’t cross my mind once whether someone’s livelihood or life is going to be jeopardised because this is what I am doing, this is how I am going to execute, why am I going to care about anybody else? I just didn’t care,” he says.

Moses was so focused on himself that he wasn’t paying attention to the fact that the authorities were closing in and scrutinising suspicious betting activity in his league.

And it is hardly surprising, seeing as one lowly Conference South match, played in front of a handful of supporters, between Welling and Billericay, attracted more bets than Barcelona.

He moved to Whitehawk before retiring from football in 2013. It was around this time he was caught up in the undercover investigation which led to his downfall. 

He got a phone call from Delroy Facey who said some “Singaporean guys” were new investors and were offering £60,000.

He was also contacted by a player he knew from his days at Crystal Palace, Michael Boateng, whom Swaibu put in touch with Facey.

Swaibu was suspicious when Boateng told him a “white guy” wanted to meet them to discuss the fix. 

They went to an Indian restaurant and the men handed over cash to Swaibu. He left the restaurant  only to be arrested by waiting police.

On leaving prison Swaibu contacted the FA to provide information about the fixing syndicate and has visited clubs to talk about the dangers.

He now works with players to ensure that they can speak up if they are approached, saying: “The last thing you want to do is end up in the position I was in.”

Confessions of a Match Fixer is available on BBC Sounds.

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk