Match-fixing probe widens into high-profile crime

A wide-scale probe into match fixing in Italy's top three football leagues has moved into the shadow of organised crime. An investigator from Cremona, the northern-Italy office which is co-ordinating the nation-wide probe, was quoted Friday as saying that "organised crime at its highest levels" could be behind a scheme that involves active and former footballers, owners of betting agencies and several punters.
Former international striker Giuseppe Signori was placed under house arrest this week and 15 other people were detained, while retired defender Stefano Bettarini and Atalanta captain Cristiano Doni are being investigated with about 30 other people. Investigator Guido Salvini said that the scheme appears to involve go-betweens in charge of contacting players, who received money to obtain a certain result on the pitch.
There seemed to be a price list for each game, with 400,000 euros (578,000 dollars) to be shared among players willing to fix a Serie A game, 120,000 euros for the Serie B and 50,000 euros per game in the two-divisions of the Lega Pro. Also involved were several in-the-know punters and, apparently as ringleaders, "groups of people who invested capitals in the range of hundreds of thousand of euros on each fixed game," Salvini said.
"The origin of this money is unknown, but it is so much that we cannot rule out money laundering." Prosecutors in the southern town of Bari were already investigating local Mafia gangs, which seemed to have betted heavily on football games with money from drug dealing.
Investigators said they expect to learn more from Antonio Bellavista, a retired Bari player, and Benevento goalkeeper Marco Paoloni, both in jail in Cremona. Paoloni is suspected of having put a sleeping drug in the water drunk by his team-mates when he was at Cremonese, before a Lega Pro game that the hosts still won 2-0 against Paganese in November.
Cremonese this week were praised by investigators, who started the probe after team officials alerted them that five players felt sick after the game. Paoloni also appears to be involved in the unsuccessful fixing of the Serie A game Inter Milan-Lecce, which the Nerazzurri won 1-0 on March 20. It appears that Signori and others bet 150,000 euros (216,000 dollars) that at least three goals would be scored in the game and paid Paoloni to fix the game accordingly.
In one of the thousands of telephone calls recorded by investigators, a person threatens Paoloni after the game, urging himto give back 13,000 euros. A day earlier, Paoloni seemingly managed to properly fix the game between Benevento and Pisa, which his side won 1-0. At least 18 games played in the 2010-11 season are being investigated. Serie A games Brescia-Bologna, AC Milan-Chievo and Genoa-Roma are mentioned in tapped calls, along with several Serie B games of Atalanta and Siena, who both secured promotion in May. The name of Roma midfielder Daniele De Rossi was said early Friday to have been to have been mentioned in some calls, but Cremona prosecutor Roberto Di Martino said later in the day that his name never appeared in the investigation.