By Mark Baber
February 5 – Europol has revealed results of a major investigation across 13 European countries that has uncovered an extensive criminal network involved in widespread football match-fixing, implicating more than 425 people across 15 countries and 380 professional matches.
Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement unit that handles criminal intelligence, ran a Joint Investigation Team (JIT), codenamed ‘Operation VETO’, from July 2011.
The investigation is still on-going and a “total of 425 match officials, club officials, players, and serious criminals, from more than 15 countries, are suspected of being involved in attempts to fix more than 380 professional football matches.
“The activities formed part of a sophisticated organised crime operation, which generated over €8 million in betting profits and involved over €2 million in corrupt payments to those involved in the matches.”
The JIT was led by Europol, Germany, Finland, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia and supported by Eurojust, Interpol and investigators from eight other European countries.
According to Rob Wainwright, Director of Europol: “The investigation coordinated multiple police enquiries across Europe and was facilitated by intelligence reports from Europol, based on the analysis of 13,000 emails and other material, which identified links between matches and suspects and uncovered the nature of the organised crime network behind the illegal activities.”
The investigation has led to several prosecutions in the countries involved, including Germany where 14 people have already been convicted and sentenced to a total of 39 years in prison.
“Among the 380 or more suspicious matches identified by this case are World Cup and European Championship qualification matches, two UEFA Champions League matches and several top-flight matches in European national leagues,” said Wainwright.
” In addition another 300 suspicious matches were identified outside Europe, mainly in Africa, Asia, South and Central America.”
A spokesperson for JIT Veto, Fridhelm Althans from Bochum Police, Germany, said: “We have evidence for 150 of these cases and the operations were run out of Singapore with bribes of up to 100 000 euros paid per match.”
According to Europol, organised crime is targeting the world of football “where illegal profits are made on a scale and in a way that threatens the very fabric of the game. All those responsible for running football should heed the warnings found in this case.”
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