Cricket World Cup catches sports betting syndicates' attention

Match fixing has become one of the main problems for sports in the last decades. Soccer, basketball, and football have been always catching the attention of big sports betting crime organizations. Although the network of organized crime has grown deeper and deeper into the main sports, European sports leagues are working with international police corps, Interpol, with no sign of stopping. Here in the US, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been very busy with the latest of the biggest direct crimes of fraud by Malaysian high stakes poker player, Paul Phua Wei-seng. The Malaysian poker player, his son, and poker player Richard Wong, they all are facing sentences for illegal soccer gambling operations, an activity that they decided to do through an online hub from one of the Caesars’ luxury villas in Las Vegas.

Just when we thought we had seen everything, these sports betting syndicates show us that they can also spread among other sports of not that great magnitude. Heath Mills, chief executive of the Cricket Players Association, has been the latest voice warning organizations about what is about to happen. Betting crime organizations have been targeting the Cricket World Cup. These betting syndicates are trying to fix matches during the biggest event hosted by both countries, Australia and New Zealand.

Heath Mills, the Cricket Players Association’s chief executive, stated: “I have no doubt that match fixing groups will be looking at New Zealand and that they have had people on the ground in New Zealand previously,” said Mills, who added that players were often groomed for years before the trap was set. “The honey trap might be part of that grooming process where there are compromising images … They might notice the person has got family troubles, or they might notice they’ve got financial issues or mental health issues, which they can threaten to expose.”