European police body says match fixing probe uncovered more than 380 suspicious games

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Britain\'s Rob Wainwright, director of the European police agency Europol, elaborates on findings of a probe into match fixing during a press conference in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday Feb. 4, 2013. The European police agency is unveiling results of a major investigation across the continent into match fixing in football, including what it is calling "top international games." The presentation will likely be one of the most comprehensive overviews yet of rigging games. Investigators from Germany, Finland, Hungary and Slovenia are presenting the results of probes into the murky world of fixing matches and the huge sums of money involved. Football already has been rocked by several match-fixing cases, most notably in Germany and Italy. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The European police agency says a wide-ranging match fixing investigation has uncovered more than 380 suspicious matches, including Word Cup and European Championship qualifiers and two Champions League games.

Europol’s chief Rob Wainwright said Monday the investigation uncovered “match fixing activity on a scale we have not seen before.”

Wainwright says the probe uncovered €8 million ($10.9 million) in betting profits and €2 million ($2.7 million) in bribes to players and officials and has already led to several prosecutions. Wainwright says the involvement of organized crime “highlights a big problem for the integrity of football in Europe.”

It was not immediately clear how many of the matches mentioned Monday have been revealed in previous match fixing investigations at a national level in countries including Germany and Italy.

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