Spanish Police Arrest Nine in Soccer Match-Fixing Inquiry

(Bloomberg) -- Spanish Police arrested nine people in an investigation of a criminal organization that allegedly fixed at least three soccer games and laundered money.

Players or ex-players of of teams in the country’s first and second divisions and club officials are among those already held or set to be arrested, the police said in an emailed statement Tuesday. Two more arrests are expected.

The group allegedly selected games to be fixed, mainly at the beginning or at the end of the season, and then bet on their results. One of the match-fixing episodes caused the cash volume of bets related to the game in question to increase by as much as 14 times above normal levels, police said.

Spanish soccer league La Liga is one of the world’s most prestigious tournaments and home to Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. The clubs are the two teams that generate the most revenue in global soccer, according to a report by Deloitte.

El Mundo newspaper reported earlier that several players had been detained, including former Real Madrid defender Raul Bravo, who’s believed to be the head of the organization.

It wasn’t immediately possible to reach a spokesperson at Real Madrid to comment on the case or seek a contact for Bravo’s representative.

La Liga said in a statement Tuesday that it had reported a match between Huesca and Gimnastic de Tarragona in May last year on suspicion corruption was involved.

To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Gualtieri in Madrid at tgualtieri@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Charles Penty at cpenty@bloomberg.net, Christopher Elser

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