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How the Pakistan cricket match-fixing investigation started with a tip-off | News Of The World
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THE INSIDE STORY: Reporter Mazher Mahmood tells how he got the tip-off
IT was back in January that I first received the phone call that would start my investigation.
A former member of the Pakistan cricket management team told me the England v Pakistan series would be rigged to ensure huge betting wins for crooked syndicates.
Indian bookmakers were effectively controlling games, telling a number of Pakistani stars what to do on the pitch. Once the paymasters knew what would happen in a game, they could rig the odds in their favour – and bet fortunes with other bookmakers who were not in the know.
The crucial extra piece of information I received in January was the name Mazhar Majeed, a millionaire businessman who acted as an agent for Pakistani players. I was told he was the fixer for the summer Test series in England.
We made a number of background checks on Majeed, but it wasn’t until August 8 that the investigation moved into top gear and I arranged to meet him, posing as a multi-millionaire businessman interested in holding a cricket tournament in the Middle East.
FIRST MEETING WITH FIXER, Park Lane Hilton, London, August 16
After weeks of preparation, we finally come face to face with Mazhar Majeed – the Croydon-born businessman and Pakistan players agent – in the opening innings of an investigation that would rock the cricket world.
In the plush hotel’s Podium restaurant, our team explain they are representing a business group interested in launching a new cricket tournament – and we need Majeed’s help to bring in the stars.
The smooth fixer instantly pounces, boasting about his links to the Pakistan team – and hints at the power he holds over them, telling us: “I manage quite a lot of the players.
“I do all their affairs, all their contracts, all their sponsorship, all their marketing. Everything really.”
He asks if we will put up a “million dollars” in prize money for the tournament and adds: “All the players would be up for that. Then not only will they come to play, they actually come to win.”
One player he does not want involved is Shahid Afridi, the veteran Pakistan captain in charge of the side in the one-day series.
Afridi was not one of the players Majeed had in his pocket.
“I could have signed Afridi five years ago. All the other players I know, you know like brothers. When they’re in England I see them every day. I go to Pakistan to stay with them. We are going out for dinner tonight actually, Edgware Road.”
Yassir Ahmed blowing the lid off cricket scam in Pakistan.
Pakistan cricket star Yasir Hameed talks about match fixing teammates | News Of The World
A PAKISTAN cricketer who played in the rigged Lord’s Test has sensationally confirmed that there WERE cheats in his team.
Respected opening batsman Yasir Hameed claims bent teammates were fixing “almost every match”.
And he provided a devastating insight into the shady world of betting scams, telling how he:
- REFUSED bribes of up to £150,000 from a corrupt bookmaker to throw matches.
- LOST his own place in the squad and saw his career damaged as a result.
- WATCHED as crooked colleagues splashed out on plush properties and expensive sports cars funded by their illicit activities.
- LEARNED that shameless players pocketed an astonishing £1.8million for rigging a Test match against Australia earlier this year.
Hameed, once rated amongst the world’s finest batsmen, said of his scandal-struck colleagues: “They’ve been caught. Only the ones that get caught are branded crooks.
“They were doing it (fixing) in almost every match. God knows what they were up to. Scotland Yard was after them for ages.
“It makes me angry because I’m playing my best and they are trying to lose.”
And, predicting the likely fate of the players exposed by the News of the World, Hameed added darkly: “The guys that have got done have got themselves killed.
“They’re gone – forget about them.”
Hameed’s remarks will heap pressure on the ICC investigation and the preposterous defence thrown up last week by shamed Pakistan skipper Salman Butt, bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir and their Pakistan Cricket Board bosses.
Sipping white wine in a Nottingham hotel just two days after our revelations sparked a worldwide sensation, Hameed, 32, described how he became a victim of betting cartels’ vengeance for refusing to fix games.
“It’s because of all these wrong things that I was outed, because I wouldn’t get involved,” he told our undercover reporter.
“If you sat here and said, ‘I’m a bookie and I want you to fix the match tomorrow’ – I’ve met lots of people like that in the past and I refused. They offered me handsome money.
“I could have come to see you in a Ferrari. They give you so much money that you can live out your dreams, buy a flash car.