The searches were conducted by City of London police at the request of German police as part of an ongoing investigation following a huge European match-fixing ring uncovered by criminal authorities in Bochum.
Officers searched the Wembley offices of Samvo Entertainment Limited, a Hong-Kong controlled bookmaking and gaming group, for the first time in November 2009. A second search followed a year later and the most recent was four weeks ago.
The Bochum investigation has seen six members of a match-fixing operation convicted for their part in the suspected manipulation of more than 300 club and international matches. Ante Sapina, the Croatian leader of the operation, was jailed for 5½ years.
German investigators are investigating whether some of the bets placed on fixed matches were channelled via accounts registered with Samvo, and if employees of the company may have personally placed bets on behalf of a match-fixing gang.
Samvo denies any wrongdoing and says it has co-operated with the police in the UK and Germany throughout the investigation.
The latest raid on Samvo came after Sapina was convicted at the end of May. City police are understood to have removed documentation from the Samvo offices and passed the information to their German counterparts. No arrests were made during the searches and the British authorities are not conducting a separate investigation.
City of London police confirmed to The Daily Telegraph that they conducted the searches under warrants requested by the German authorities, but declined to comment further.
Samvo said yesterday that it had co-operated with the police investigation, and denied that its employees were linked to offences exposed by the German authorities.
Samvo is licensed by gambling regulators in Alderney, the Dutch Antilles and the UK, where it is regulated by the Gambling Commission.
David Miller, the company’s senior marketing manager, told The Daily Telegraph it is compliant with all three regulators.
“Throughout the investigation of Sapina, Samvo has provided its full support to the City of London Police and to the German Authorities,” he said via email.
“I can confirm that no employee of Samvo has been implicated in any of the offences for which Sapina and the other defendants in the German court proceedings have been found guilty. Any accounts which were identified by the German Authorities as being potentially connected to the activities of Sapina or the other defendants were promptly suspended by Samvo and any monies held in those accounts were frozen and were transferred to the German Court.’’
Samvo is a gaming and betting company that describes itself on its website as a “global investment company” focused “on the areas of pleasure and leisure”. It claims to be “one of the largest licensed betting brokers in the world”, and describes its sports betting arm as “a very exclusive betting service” catering to “an extremely niche market”.
The company is owned and controlled by Shung Fai ‘Frank’ Chan, a Hong Kong businessman and politician who sits on the Hong Kong North District Council.
The company recorded a turnover of £31 million in 2009, and lists three other directors of Chinese extraction, according to its most recently published accounts. It is ultimately owned by a company registered in the Cayman Islands.
The police action in relation to Samvo emphasises the international reach of match-fixing operations. Fifa investigators also believe that London may be a conduit for illegal betting.
Earlier this year The Daily Telegraph revealed that Wilson Raj Perumal, a Singaporean currently on trial for manipulating club games in Finland and linked to suspected fixed international games, operated for six months from a London flat, yards from Wembley.
Chris Eaton, Fifa’s head of security, said: “I firmly believe that while match-fixing is a truly global threat, many of the financial trails will ultimately lead back to London, because of its role as the financial centre of Europe.”
Eaton is leading a clampdown on suspected match-fixing, and has identified suspicious activities in international and club football throughout Asia, Europe and South and Central America.
Fifa is investigating a number of internationals, including Nigeria’s recent friendly with Argentina, and matches staged in Turkey and Sharjah.
“We are seeing an explosion of suspected match-fixing activity around the world that is emerging because the criminal gangs involved know that we are very active and are trying hard to squeeze them out,’’ he said. ‘‘I firmly believe that we can win this battle.”
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment