Wilson Raj Perumal also known as Raja Morgan Chelliah was born on July 31, 1965 in the Republic of Singapore.
From a humble background, Perumal worked his way through Singapore’s local leagues in the late 1980s en route to becoming a leading match-fixer accumulating millions of shillings through manipulation of match results.
Perumal, 53, is currently residing in Budapest, Hungary under house arrest helping European police combat the vice that has rocked football circles around the world including Kenya.
“I had my boyhood dreams. I wanted to be a soldier but during my school days I got a criminal record and couldn’t really pursue what I wanted to. And then I got attracted to betting when I was about 19-20 years old,” he said in a previous interview with broadcaster CNN four years ago.
“I kind of got hooked and I didn’t want to lose so I started fixing matches … I had the opportunity to target vulnerable countries, people who were prone to accept bribes. So I registered a company (Football 4U International) and started e-mailing associations and building relationships.”
“Officials were just as easy to target while certain football associations would welcome you with open arms,” he alluded whilst claiming to have rigged games at the Olympics, World Cup qualifiers, Women’s World Cup, the Concacaf Gold Cup and the Africa Cup of Nations.
Police confiscated his gadgets while in Finland in 2012 and found contacts of officials and players from 38 countries in one phone book.
On his laptop, he had contacts for a quarter of Fifa’s 211 member associations.
In another interview with Al Jazeera, Perumal confessed to have helped Nigeria qualify for the World Cup in South Africa through his links in the Harambee Stars camp.
He flew to Nairobi a day before Kenya hosted the Super Eagles at Kasarani stadium on November 14, 2009 to seal the deal.
“I’ve got two or three players in the Kenyan team and they’ll ensure Nigeria win on the day … two of them were starting in the match while one was on the bench, I spoke to the players and they agreed to help Nigeria win,” he revealed.
As predicted, Nigeria ran away 3-2 winners to book a ticket to the World Cup in South Africa as group “B” leaders after Mozambique shocked favourites Tunisia 1-0.
Perumal – in a bid to ensure his gamble worked – promised Mozambique a bonus of $100,000 (Sh10m) to get a positive result against the Carthage Eagles.
The Kenyan players went to the hotel after the match to collect the money in vain.
“They came to the room and Wilson was telling them he lost, they (players) said how could you lose, he said I told you it must be two clear goals, I didn’t see them getting money from Wilson because he was not in the mood to talk to anyone,” Perumal’s man Manimaran Kalimuthu, who had travelled alongside him to Nairobi told Al Jazeera.
Fifa recently opened investigations into Kenyan football match-fixing allegations by establishing a prima facie case against Harambee Stars defender George Owino for potentially committing breaches of Fifa’s Code of Ethics between June 2009 and March 2011.