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TAIPEI: Six people were in custody for allegedly rigging baseball matches, prosecutors said on Tuesday, in the latest scandal to hit Taiwan's most popular sport.
The detained, including a former professional team member, were suspected of bribing players on behalf of a gambling ring to manipulate matches held between May and September this year, prosecutors said.
"We suspect some players of taking money from a betting ring. So far the evidence points to individual behaviour without the involvement of the teams," said a spokesman for the Banciao district prosecutor's office in Taipei.
Prosecutors were tipped-off while investigating another match fixing case last year, he said.
At least eight players from three teams allegedly received 300,000 Taiwan dollars (about 9,400 US) per match to play fixed games, and the price for key players was over one million Taiwan dollars, the local China Times said.
Tsao Chin-hui, the first Taiwanese pitcher to play in the US major baseball league, is among the players being probed, the paper said.
Prosecutors said they will start questioning players on Wednesday, following an earlier search of their homes and dorms and other places relevant to the investigation.
The case is the latest in a string of game-rigging scandals to hit the island's professional baseball.
Last year, Taiwan's baseball league banned the Media T-Rex team on match-fixing allegations implicating three players, among others.
The scandal outraged fans, already jolted by earlier similar cases, and dealt another blow to the island's professional baseball league.
A scandal that erupted in 1996, the worst in the history of the sport here, led to the disbanding of the China Times Eagles.
- AFP/so
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