Singapore police are not involved in the case involving two of their nationals charged in England with conspiracy to defraud as part of a match-fixing investigation into lower league soccer matches.

The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) named the men charged yesterday as Chann Sankaran, a 33-year-old Singapore national, and Krishna Sanjey Ganeshan, a 43-year-old with dual UK and

Singapore nationality.

Singapore police had not replied to questions from Reuters at time of publication about their involvement in the case or if they knew the two men today, but earlier told local daily newspaper Today they had not been contacted by UK counterparts.

“The Singapore authorities were not involved in the arrests,” the paper quoted a police spokesperson as saying.

Singapore has long battled soccer match-fixing and issued detention orders to four people last month for their alleged involvement in a global syndicate after arresting 14 people in September.

Nobody was named in the operation but one detainee was believed to be Singaporean Tan Seet Eng, also known as Dan Tan, widely considered as the mastermind behind a global match-fixing

organisation who is wanted by Italian police.

Law enforcement agency Interpol lauded the work of Singapore authorities for the capture after earlier criticising them for not moving fast enough in making arrests, with South-East Asia

being the long identified as the heartbeat of the problem.

European police said in February a Singapore-based syndicate had directed match-fixing for at least 380 soccer games in Europe alone, making at least eight million euros (US$10.88 million).

- Reuters