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episode 012 — The Bizarre Disappearance of Sri Lanka’s ENTIRE National Handball Team | Hidden Stories
I'm sure we've all heard of stories where a single person just suddenly disappeared without a trace. Even in those similar cases, it's probably really hard for whoever's behind the disappearance to make it happen so seamlessly. So how on earth does an entire sports team of around 20 or so people just all disappear at exactly the same time? One day the players and coach are here.
They're ready to play. And then the next day, poof, they've just completely vanished. How does that happen? Well, that's exactly the question that we're diving into today. And I have a feeling that this particular story will take a twist that you won't be expecting at all. So without further ado, settle down. Make yourself comfortable. Grab yourself a snack.
Welcome back, guys. My name is Andy Chang, and this is Hidden Stories. In 2003, a German man named DeMar Tutoring received a phone call from a director in the Sri Lankan Sports Ministry to organize a friendly handball match between Germany's and Sri Lanka's national teams. Now, DeMar was the founder of an organization called the Asian German Sports Exchange Program, or Accept for Short, which helped to bring together people from the two countries of Germany and Sri Lanka through sports.
This was something that he was extremely passionate about. When DeMar was visiting Sri Lanka from Germany for the very first time in 1981 for a vacation, he fell in love with the country and its people and even met the woman who would later become his wife there. As a result, after seeing just how well he had bonded with his wife through their mutual love for table tennis, DeMar, a professional player who was also the coach of the German national table tennis team, had the idea to start accept to begin connecting more people from his home country of Germany to his adopted country of Sri Lanka through playing sports.
And over the past ten years, DeMar Knox had organized hundreds of tournaments in a variety of different sports, helping countless Sri Lankans and Germans travel to each other's countries and experience each other's cultures. So when the Sri Lankan Sports Ministry director contacted DeMar about organizing the handball match, he happily agreed. He soon arranged for the German national team to be flown out to Sri Lanka to have an exhibition match with the Sri Lankan national team.
DeMar figured that it'd be a very casual chill game with many opportunities on both sides to just score and have fun. But when the day of the match came to his surprise, the Sri Lankan national team got absolutely destroyed by the Germans. It wasn't even close. The score was 36 to 2 and it also wasn't like the German players were trying their best to win by as much as possible.
They were actually playing just as politely as they could, but the Sri Lankan players were just that much weaker. Although DeMar was a bit surprised by this outcome when he thought about it, it also made sense. While the German team was almost a hundred years old and was fairly strong. The Sri Lankan team was probably very new. After all, DeMar had never even heard of it and no one of its existence until the director at the Sports Ministry had told him about it.
So he figured that all the Sri Lankan players needed was just time to play against lower level teams so that they could improve. So he decided to invite the Sri Lankan national team to return back to Germany with the German players so that they could participate in a two week long ten game tournament with later competition. When the team agreed to be more organized for the 22 players, as was the team's coach, to have temporary visas so that they could get into the country.
And in September of 2004, the members of the Sri Lankan national handball team also set foot into Germany for the very first time. They arrived in the small town of whistling in Germany the afternoon before the day of the first match of the tournament. Even from the very start, it was really clear that deep Mars exit program was working really well.
The local Germans were extremely hospitable, warm and welcoming, and they took the Sri Lankans all around town. The players were introduced to the town's mayor, were invited to dinner by one of the German teams and just talked, sang and danced with their new friends for hours. Everyone had a really fun and happy time, but when it actually came time for the first match of the tournament, the very next day, despite Timor's hopes that the Sri Lankan team would be able to perform better against their weaker opponents.
Somehow they managed to perform even worse than they had the first time. This time they didn't even score a single point. In fact, it became very clear that many of the Sri Lankan players didn't even seem to be familiar with the most basic rules of handball. They had difficulty even doing things like just catching the ball, which really confused their German opponents since this was supposedly this Lankan national handball team.
But despite the extremely poor performance from the Sri Lankan players, the Germans were still just as from the as ever. They didn't love them at all and were very understanding and compared the Sri Lankan team to how the very first German handball team had started off as well. After the match was over, the German players just stopped talking about handball entirely to try not to make the Sri Lankan players feel embarrassed or feel bad about themselves.
The German players again hosted the Sri Lankan players for dinner and they all sang and danced and had an amazing time, just like the first night. Even though the Sri Lankan team wasn't playing all that well, it seemed like Timor's version of bringing together Germans and Sri Lankans through sports was continuing to gradually become a reality in a very beautiful way.
And ultimately, that was what mattered most. DeMar himself wasn't worried about the team's poor performance at all. He was just really happy that everyone was getting along so well and was hopeful that the Sri Lankan team would make significant improvements over the next nine games in the tournament. Now before I continue with the story, this show is sponsored by Better Hope, a recurring theme that I have seen time and time again in the stories that I cover is that oftentimes a single towards a single action, a single event can really change people's lives, either for the better or for the worse.
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The very next morning, the German players were waiting for the Sri Lankan players to show up, to have breakfast together like they had planned to do every single day of the tournament. But after they had waited for a while, passed their schedule time and still not a single player had showed up. They became concerned and felt that something was wrong.
At first they thought that the Sri Lankan team must have gotten lost in the woods during their morning jog. But when they went to talk the team's hotel rooms, they were shocked to find that most of the players belongings were now completely gone, and all that was left behind were their dirty jerseys and shoes and a single handwritten letter.
The letter read for everyone. We want to say thank you. You are very friendly. We have to leave Germany and travel to want to find a better future in life. It's our decision and we will also take full response, ability and risk for our decision. You all were very friendly and nice to us. Please forgive us for a decision.
We don't have any other way right now. We can't go back to Sri Lanka, so we'll go now. Please don't worry about us. We will be fine. You have done a lot for us and thank you all again with love. A second part of the letter stated that the players would be leaving Germany to travel to France, and it was only after the German players and DeMar read that letter that everything suddenly started making a whole lot more sense.
Turns out the Sri Lankan national handball team did not exist. The country did not have and had never had a national handball team ever in its history. And the players on that team were not handball players. You see in late 2002, an extremely clever plan was hatched to help a group of
The horrifying violence, political unrest, rising prices of goods, as well as the very scarce opportunity to make money in some areas of Sri Lanka at the time. Made citizens in those areas feel that the country's simply could no longer be lived in. However, since there was no legal way to leave the country, people had to resort to illegal methods if they wanted any sliver of hope for a good future for themselves and their family.
And since these illegal methods could often be extremely dangerous or even fatal, such as hiding in tiny cargo boxes aboard ships to make it across the ocean, someone came up with a much safer idea. A handball team. Although it's unclear who first came up with the plan, whoever it was knew that since Sri Lanka didn't have a national handball team there was an opportunity to create one.
They knew about Demarr and his organization Accept and how they would often provide Sri Lankan players with visas and fly them out to compete overseas. And they knew that with the right contact at the Sri Lankan Sports Ministry, they could get access to Demarr and he would likely be very happy to help organize a trip to Germany for the alleged Sri Lankan national handball team.
A 23 year old named group passenger who would end up as one of the players on the team, remembers receiving a call from a friend who informed him about the plan. He was told that he could finally get out of Sri Lanka and join his relatives in Italy. All he had to do was pay a $4,000 fee and learn to play a game called handball.
A 28 year old named Tandon remembers something similar, being called by his older brother, who was already living in Italy and being told the same things. And so Rupa, Singha and Tonda, as well as the other 20 people informed about the plan. Began intelligently training to fulfill their roles as handball players while another older man then which in a yaka was brought in to fulfill his role as the team's coach.
It wasn't easy between the time their contact at the Sri Lankan Sports Ministry called Amar about setting up a match between the German and Sri Lankan teams and the time that the German team actually arrived in Sri Lanka to play in that match was only a few weeks. As such, they only had just a few weeks to learn the basics of the game and at least play well enough so that DeMar and the German players wouldn't have become too suspicious of them not being actual handball players.
But despite none of the Sri Lankan players or even the coach having any handball experience whatsoever, they somehow managed to pull it off. No one suspected a single thing and as they had expected after the match, DeMar invited the Sri Lankan team to come back to Germany to play there. Although the Sri Lankan players really did have an amazing time in the country and love their German hosts, they simply had to do what they came to do.
Or else they might not have an opportunity like that ever again. And at 5 a.m. in the morning, on the day after their very first tournament match, the entire Sri Lankan team quietly slipped out of their hotel and began making their way towards their destination. Although they had stated that they were going to France in their letter, that was merely to confuse and distract the authorities as they made their way to the real destination of Italy.
Since Italy has a large Sri Lankan immigrant population, many of the players, friends and family were already there. Combined with the fact that Italians tend to be pretty friendly towards Sri Lankans. The players had heard that it would be pretty easy to make a solid living working in their restaurants, although the players were really sad to be leaving their German friends behind, especially after being treated so well.
They really just didn't have a choice. Most of them needed to provide for at least 5 to 10 different family members back home in Sri Lanka, and that simply was no longer possible unless they could get out of the country and find a better place to work. And so, despite the team's lingering feelings of sadness, they crossed the German border and began making their way to
But when the story of how a fake Sri Lankan national handball team managed to trick Germany and smuggle the way into the country began to spread all across the world. People immediately began jumping to conclusions, claiming that the team was full of Tamil terrorists who were going to kill tons of people and that they needed to be captured and brutally punished immediately.
But the men who suffered the most from the fallout from the situation was DeMar, since he was the one who had gotten the visas for the players and had invited them into Germany in the first place. Naturally, all these news stations from around the world began painting him as the mastermind behind the entire scheme, blaming him for the entire thing.
People became even more convinced that DeMar was at fault. When the Sri Lankan Sports Ministry came out and said not only did a Sri Lankan national handball team just not exist, they had never actually authorized a trip for any of the handball players to go play in Germany despite team protests. This was completely untrue. Since the very reason he had even set up a trip in the first place was because he had been contacted by a director at the Sri Lankan Sports Ministry.
People didn't believe him and thought that he was lying just to save his own skin. As a result, for a while, Dittmar had to just really scramble, desperately trying to clarify the entire situation and explain his side of the story, which not only just stressed him out beyond belief, it also wasted his time and hurt his character. Since the German embassy went on to blacklist this organization, except from ever participating in any sporting events ever again in the country, he had been made to look like a complete fool on the world stage, which both devastated and enraged him.
He had spent more than ten years of his own time, sweat and energy, building up his organization and its brand for doing good while helping countless Sri Lankans in the process. And now that entire organization and brand were completely ruined. He felt completely betrayed by the Sri Lankan handball players, some of the very players he tried so hard to help.
He had done so much for them, trusted them, and they just stomped on their trust without a single consideration for how it would impact him. In except for a long while after the players had left to go to Italy deep, Moore wanted to have every single one of them cut and brought back so that he could take them to court and sue them.
He couldn't understand why they'd been so selfish, just so heartless, to ruin such a great thing for their people and their country. But over the years, as time went on, he gradually began to finally understand their side of the story and why they had done what they had done. He realized that this wasn't a story of crime or smuggling or terrorism or a story of actions done with malicious intent.
It was a story of survival. He learned that after the players arrived to Italy, they would each send back most of their earned money to their families in Sri Lanka. He learned that some players had more than ten people relying on them for the money to afford even basic necessities. And he learned that life in some areas of Sri Lanka was no life at all and that these players had only left their country because they felt that it was the only way to create any sort of future for themselves and their family.
Although DeMar was still incredibly saddened that his sports exchange program had been ended and that numerous Sri Lankan players would ever be allowed visas to visit Germany to play in tournaments, he ultimately sympathized with the handball players and forgave them for their actions. Within a decade of the 23 players arriving to Italy, more than half of them would return home.
Some had become extremely homesick and others just simply couldn't find a job for themselves, even though they had been promised that it'd be easy to do so in Italy. The rest of the players, however, more or less enjoyed their new lives in Italy. They found good jobs with very solid pay and were not only able to provide well for their family members back home, but were also able to mesh well with the existing Sri Lankan communities within Italy and create a new life for themselves.
It's actually unknown whether any of the players were ever punished for their actions. But ever since the handball players minister successfully leaves Sri Lanka, hundreds of other Sri Lankan athletes have also begun using international sporting events to escape from their country. It's become so common that authorities even have a name for its decamping. However, the disappearance of the Sri Lankan national handball team remains the most infamous case of decamping in history, and it's the only documented instance where an entire team has successfully decamped.
It's unknown where any of the players are today more than 20 years later. But all we can hope for is that they're all doing well for themselves. With that being said, I hope you found this week's story interesting. If you're new here. Hi, my name is Andy. I tell us our true hidden stories once a week. I personally guarantee you that every single story I cover from here on out will be just as interesting, if not even more interesting than today's.
So stick with me. As always, let me know your comments, thoughts, feedback, other ideas down below. I'll see you guys soon.