Dan Tan Arrested

Last week, news agencies throughout the world, from CNN to the BBC to Al Jazeera, blared out the news that Singaporean businessman Tan Seet Eng, better known as Dan Tan, has been arrested by Singapore Police.

Mr. Dan Tan is the alleged head of a global football match-fixing syndicate based in Singapore which is suspected of fixing hundreds of games worldwide, including in the Champions League and World Cup qualifiers. Last week he, along with 13 others, were arrested by the Singapore Police.

The arrests have been hailed by news agencies as the Singapore police has been under pressure to make the arrest for months. The Singapore police had been under so much pressure that in May, they had to announce that Tan was "assisting investigators in Singapore" even as he was charged in Hungary over the alleged manipulation of 32 games in three countries.

Those charges came after five-country probe by Europol in February which identified 380 suspicious matches in Europe targeted by Singapore-based betting cartels. Then again earlier this month, six men in Australia (of all places) were charged over a multi-million dollar scam in Australian state soccer. Of course, Singapore was suspected as the source of the fixers. So you can understand why people hailed the arrests.

Now if only we know what they are been arrested for?

Since news of the arrest broke, the Singapore police has been very quiet on the charges faced by the 14 arrested people. Almost no news have come on what charge Tan is currently facing. Now some people will say this is not unusual in Singapore as our penal code allows the police to detain someone up to a year without trial, but that law is for gang activities and since Tan's crimes were all committed overseas...

Now I'm all for cleaning up football but I hope to hear news on the charges Tan is facing. I hope the Singapore Police has a solid case against Tan, and they didn't just arrest him due to outside pressure. That will not help anyone.