UAE hosts 12th meeting of INTERPOL Match Fixing Task Force

ABU DHABI, 10th May, 2022 (WAM) — The UAE Ministry of Interior hosted today the 12th meeting of the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) with the participation of some 50 countries from all continents of the world.

The meeting addresses several issues related to sports integrity, legal violations related to matches and the international community’s role in promoting work and exchange experiences to limit the spread of such illegal violations and provide an atmosphere for healthy sports competitions.

Participants in this global meeting learn about information, experiences, and best practices at the international level to prevent corruption and fraud in a wide range of sports, where criminal networks are trying to exploit the passion of sports fans and exploit it to implement their illegal ends.

The International Affairs Office at the Ministry of Interior welcomed the participants to the meeting in the presence of representatives of the participating countries and several police and sports leaders locally, Arab, and internationally from the football, cricket, athletics, tennis, table tennis and sports betting and sport governing bodies.

The International Office Affairs affirmed the keenness of the UAE Ministry of Interior to promote integrative international action and exchange best practices and experiences to improve institutional work aimed at enhancing the security and stability of societies, stressing the importance of such specialised meetings that discuss several issues related to integrity and transparency and enhancing the security of international sporting events and events and International Youth Forums.

The three-day meeting deals with several relevant topics related to violations in sports, ways to verify them and means to combat them, primarily as they represent a form of crime through betting rings linked to money laundering, smuggling and corruption. Officials from sports federations will speak on it.

The meeting also deals with several realistic and updated issues that the competent authorities are working on, revealing methods of fraud and manipulation of results, means of dealing with them, best practices in investigation methods, ways of using cryptocurrencies and offshore companies and Internet monitoring tools that were revealed during investigations conducted by the concerned authorities in such real issues.