When they fixed me up in Finland, they thought it was just going to be a Wilson-Raj-send-him-back-to-Singapore story; locked up and out of the picture for five long years. They never realized that match-fixing was going to be uncovered; it never occurred to them that the police would check my mobile phone, my laptop and go through all of my belongings.
I had just landed in Vantaa airport, Helsinki, Finland, from the small arctic town of Rovaniemi, when they stopped me. Only me. So I immediately sensed that something was amiss. It wasn't really a random check; they were already after me, following my every move. Somehow they had missed me in Rovaniemi; perhaps they didn't expect me to take the first flight out at six o'clock in the morning. So when I showed up in Vantaa airport the police stopped me, checked my passport and escorted me down to the airport's Police holding bay. Then an officer came in.
"You're traveling under a false passport", he said.
The officer was holding a picture of me in his hand; a big picture. I couldn't recognize the T-shirt that I wore in the photo.
"Where the fuck did I get that T-shirt from", it looked like an old picture.
The officer examined the photo carefully, then began scrutinizing me.
"This is not the guy".
Old photo.
He checked for a cut on my forehead; I have a little scar just below my hairline, but the officer couldn't spot it.
"No, no, no", he shook his head. "This is not the guy".
But the police in Rovaniemi insisted that they hold on to me, so there I was, sitting in the Vantaa Helsinki airport's holding bay.
Someone had given the Finnish authorities all of my true details: Singaporean, Indian origin, my real name, my picture. The police had called all the hotels in town.
"When he checks in", they demanded, "please contact us immediately".
Somebody had been saving this old photo of me for this... But who?