A Chinese man murdered with his girlfriend in his Newcastle flat may have been targeted because of his involvement in an international betting scam.

Chinese sources in the city told The Times that Yang Zhen Zing, 25, had placed advertisements on Chinese-

language websites, based in Britain, to recruit people to watch and report on football matches around the world. The aim would have been to take advantage of delays in almost live broadcasts to place bets for gambling syndicates, one said.

Mr Yang and his girlfriend Zhou Xi, also 25, were murdered in their flat in the West End of the city. Police believe that Mr Yang may have been tortured for an hour before he was killed and are working on the theory that his girlfriend may have inter-

rupted the attack when she came home from work. Detectives said that it was still not clear who had died first. Their cat was also killed, its body found in a washing-up bowl.

Several Chinese students are understood to have been questioned by the police in connection with the case and the belief within the tight-knit group is that the murder was carried out by someone who knew or worked with the couple.

On one website Mr Yang, also known as Kevin, wrote: “It is a very simple job, any student who is interested, please contact Zhenxing Yang.” An e-mail address was then listed. An advertisement posted under the name of CICI-U - his girlfriend's nickname - on the powerapple website last October said: “Work: watch football games and send live information to people. Requirement: Basic understanding of football rules, no professional background needed, advantage if you have a car. Location: Sheffield, London, Blackpool, Portsmouth, York, Hull and many other places.”

In another advertisement placed under the name of CICI-UK on December 31, 2006, he wrote: “Based on the good development of this company we need football fans to do live reports. The job is very simple and just needs someone with basic football knowledge and the salary will be generous. If you have any friends interested please contact.”

A website on powerapple devoted to covering the murders has attracted hundreds of comments from Chinese people, with more and more questioning whether Mr Yang had been involved in scams. One theory being discussed online is that football matches shown on television in China were a minute behind live action in the stadium, enabling gambling syndicates to place employees at games to gain an advantage. There is speculation that Mr Yang had been recruited by gambling bosses to act as an agent managing the people doing the live reports.

In a posting on powerapple on December 11, 2007, Mr Yang referred to a dispute that had been resolved and said no one had been cheated. “We will handle this privately.” The replies imply that Mr Yang had failed to pay people who had been employed to report on football matches. A Chinese source said that rumours had been rife in Newcastle about shady dealings possibly involving Mr Yang. The source said that while police had found cousins of Ms Zhou living in Britain, they had had great difficulty finding any relatives of Mr Yang.

Initial reports said that Mr Yang came from Dalian, northeast China, but sources in Newcastle said his family remained a mystery. It appears he may have moved to Britain from the United States. In an online posting in 2005 on a British website under the name lanyang0201, Mr Yang offered tuition to would-be economics students for £20 an hour, describing himself as a third-year doctorate student in economics at New York University.

Unsporting wagers

— Eight Wimbledon matches were reported to the tennis authorities this year on suspicion that their results had been fixed by professional gambling syndicates

— In 2005 a German referee, Robert Hoyzer, confessed to trying to fix games in the second division, third division and German Cup. His testimony uncovered a murky network of corruption linked to a Croatian gambling syndicate

— Marseilles’s celebrations after their Champions League win in 1993 did not last long. Bernard Tapie, club president, had bribed Valenciennes FC into throwing a league game, allowing Marseilles to qualify for the competition

— In 2006 the Italian clubs Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina were demoted to the second division over match-fixing

— The BBC was dragged into a fresh row over phone-in competitions after bookmakers stopped taking bets on Match of the Day’s goal of the season competition. Traders took a flood of bets on Arsenal’s Emmanuel Adebayor, raising concerns that the result of the competition had been leaked

Source: Times database

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