A "variety of integrity sources" indicated that more than 300 games "in the last year around the world are believed to have involved match-fixing, including a 'double-digit' number in England over the past two seasons," according to Nick Harris of the London DAILY MAIL. Sports data provider SportRadar, which has a "hub in Richmond, Surrey, is known to work in co-operation with various football associations and police forces to combat fixing." The firm did not "comment on specific information it has provided to police or associations." But in "quantifying the scale of the fixing problem in general," a SportRadar spokesperson said, "Our fraud detection system has classified more than 1,500 football matches as suspicious since 2005. We have also detected a lot of other manipulated matches in various other sports." SportRadar's security team monitors "not just betting patterns from bookmakers globally but also pivotal incidents in games and movements of players and associates." In the "past six months alone their investigations have led to 60 arrests and 19 charges of match-fixing or similar crimes in countries including Australia and Hong Kong." SportRadar Dir of Integrity Darren Small said, "Match-fixing is not purely a 'sport issue.' Treating this as a sport issue does not reflect the reality of today's match-fixing industry. Fixing is organized and executed by the most aggressive and sophisticated organized crime syndicates and structures from all corners of the world" (DAILY MAIL, 9/13).
