Seventeen players and managers in a third-division Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) team were arrested in a match-fixing probe, iGB reported July 31.
The national police made the arrests in Melilla and Granada in a joint operation with the European police agency Europol and the sports association LaLiga.
The investigation had been ongoing since February when the country’s General Directorate for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ) shared with police several match-fixing alerts. The majority of multiple wagers were made in Melilla, on specific soccer matches played by a team based in that city.
Around the same time LaLiga shared suspicions from whistleblowers about the same Melilla team about suspected match-fixing and misuse of aid and subsidies. Seven matches are being investigated.
Alerted by these suspicions, the national police discovered a network where the Melilla team president allegedly assisted match-fixing and involved individual players.
Police say players used third parties to make the bets on the matches, iGB reported.
The Melilla team was also found to have received grants that were used fraudulently.
The police say no further arrests will be made.
