The crooked tennis players knew him as “Maestro.” To European investigators, the Armenian based in Belgium is emerging as the suspected ringleader of an organized gambling syndicate suspected of fixing hundreds of matches and paying off more than 100 players from around Europe.
As Roger Federer and other stars compete in the Australian Open, players far lower down the sport’s food chain are being questioned this week by French police on suspicion of fixing matches for Grigor Sargsyan, a 28-year-old known as the Maestro, investigators said.
Sargsyan is being held in a Belgian jail.
The picture emerging from months of digging by police working across Europe is of a massive match-fixing scheme, organized via encrypted messaging, involving dozens of low-ranked players in small tournaments with little prize money.
Sargsyan employed mules, people hired for a few euros to place bets for the syndicate that were small enough to slip under the radar of gambling watchdogs, police said.
Sources close to the investigation, all speaking on condition of anonymity, said that four French players were in police custody on Wednesday and at least one of them told investigators that he fixed about two dozen matches for Sargsyan.
A dozen or more other French players are expected to be questioned in the coming weeks.
France was one of the countries “hardest hit” by the syndicate, which targeted lower-level pro tournaments, an investigator said.
Investigators have also questioned players in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovakia and Bulgaria, and are looking to question others, including players and managers in the US, Chile and Egypt.
More than 100 players are suspected of having worked with the syndicate, fixing matches, sets or games in exchange for payments of 500 to 3,000 euros (US$570 to US$3,419).
“The impression we’re getting is that it is very commonplace,” an official said, while another said that several hundred matches are thought to have been fixed.
Investigators fear that players used by the syndicate could suck others into the scheme and could go on to infect bigger tournaments if they climb higher in the rankings.
“In time, they could be managers of other new players or trainers, so we have to get them out of the system or they could corrupt others in a few years,” an official said.
Sargsyan in June last year was swept up in a wave of arrests in Belgium and faces organized crime, match-fixing, money laundering and forgery charges.
A suspected banker for the syndicate also faces money laundering and organized crime charges, while four others are being investigated for gambling and finding mules.
Because the bets were small, the risk of detection was “almost zero,” but the profits could still be considerable if many bets were placed, an official said.
Still unclear is whether the syndicate was linked to another match-fixing and gambling operation, also involving Armenians, unraveled in Spain.
Spanish police last week announced that 28 professional tennis players, including one who participated in last year’s US Open, were linked to that ring, taking bribes to fix results that the group bet on using fake identities.
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