A Hong Kong court found two soccer players and a betting agent guilty on Friday of bribing fellow players to manipulate matches in the city’s top two football leagues, as part of a scheme involving tens of thousands of dollars.
According to a statement from the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which led the investigation, the convicted individuals—Brian Fok, Luciano Silva Da Silva, and betting agent Waheed Mohammad—ran a match-fixing gambling operation that affected approximately 30 matches between 2021 and 2023.
The case began in October 2021 when Fok first attempted to rig a game. He offered a teammate from the Hong Kong Football Club, a member of the HK Premier League, $10,000 per match to participate in fixing the outcome. The teammate refused, but Fok later found willing collaborators in Silva Da Silva and Mohammad.
The three men then conspired to fix match results, placing illegal bets on more than 30 games in the HK First Division, another local league. Both Fok and Silva Da Silva were playing for teams in that league at the time. Their scheme involved deliberately losing matches to secure betting profits.
All three men remain in custody and will be sentenced at a later date.
