Koa Wei Quan, a Singaporean businessman, has been charged with 14 counts of graft by Singapore’s State Courts on Thursday for trying to ‘influence’ games in both the Philippine Basketball Association and the Thailand Basketball Super League five years ago.
In a report by the Straits Times, Koa offered up to $70,000 to multiple personalities both here in the Philippines and in Thailand to cover the spread in numerous games.
The report by Shaffiq Alkhatib cited multiple games in which players were directly bribed to throw games.
According to the report, there were two Filipinos who allegedly bribed Magnolia big man Ian Sangalang an amount of $5,000 to drop their 2018 PBA Philippine Cup Finals Game 5 tilt against San Miguel by a margin of at least nine points.
Magnolia lost the game in double overtime, 108-99, with Sangalang putting up 11 points, five rebounds, and three assists in 49 minutes.
In the next cited instance, an allegation was raised that players from Blackwater were bribed an amount of P525,500 to throw their game against Columbia on April 22, 2018.
The conditions were that the then-Elite have to either defeat the Dyip by four points or less or outright lose. Blackwater lost the game, 126-98.
The same Blackwater team was again bribed to defeat Phoenix outright on April 25, 2018. The bribe was reportedly set at P1,500,000.
However, the bribe backfired as the Elite lost to the Fuel Masters, 107-102.
In the TBL, court documents showed that Koa offered multiple bribes to Almond Vosotros, who was playing for PEA back then.
The point man of Koa in Thailand, according to the report, was one Poh Wei Hao.
On June 24 of that same year, Koa wanted PEA and TGE to cover a spread of 23 points. To ensure that it will be covered, they also allegedly bribed TGE’s Jalen Robinson an amout of $1,500.
TGE defeated PEA, 102-85.
On July 1, Vosotros was allegedly again bribed, this time for PEA to outright lose to Mono Vampire which happened, 84-76.
The last instance cited by the report happened on July 7 when Koa and Poh offered a bribe of $1,500 to this time control the score of PEA’s game against Hi-Tech. Their bet was that the total score should not go over 165 points.
The final score was 91-90 – 16 points over the spread.
The hearing of Koa’s case will continue on May 18. If proven guilty, he can serve up to five years in jail and be fined up to $100,000.
