Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble told sntv on Thursday (19th September) that the arrest of 14 people in Singapore on suspicion of global football match fixing was “a significant step to ending match fixing in Singapore and around the world”.
Ronald K. Noble, Interpol Secretary General, said: “The significance of the Singaporean arrests of fourteen people including one of the world’s most notorious match fixers is extraordinary. The Singaporeans for some time now have been criticised for not being serious about fighting match fixing but in fact we saw that when they didn’t receive all the evidence from other countries, when they had to conduct their own investigation, they did so aggressively, thoroughly and now they’ve arrested fourteen suspects including the mastermind for match fixing in this operation.”
“The Singaporeans have been criticised unfairly I believe for not being as serious about fighting match fixing. In fact they never received the evidence of match fixing that would have allowed them to either prosecute in their own country or extradite individuals. So what the Sinaporeans did they conducted their own investigation, working with Interpol, co-operating member countries from Italy, Hungary, Germany, Finland et cetera and they made their own investigations, targeted people for arrest who were engaged in match fixing and made the arrests, so very significant.”