Chinese & Cambodian Police Crack Down On Online Gambling Gangs

China: The Guangdong police announced that they had cracked an illegal online casino case involving a huge cross-border network, arresting a total of 36 suspects and freezing 110 million yuan ($17 million) in funds.

A WeChat group set up for gambling bureau lead to a Cambodian based gambling group.

In August 2021, Guangdong Fuling police cracked an online gambling case and arrested 11 suspects. After investigation, the suspect in the case was found to have set up a WeChat group and set gambling odds every day to attract gamblers into the group. Criminals then used software to connect to overseas gambling websites, apply for agent or member accounts on gambling websites to recharge, bet, and withdraw cash- and make profits through poor odds, liquidity bonuses, and website profit dividends.

During the in-depth investigation, the police handling the case discovered that an overseas online gambling criminal group located in Cambodia was also involved in the scheme.

Police investigations found that the total betting turnover in this case uncovered in Fuling exceeded 330 million yuan (almost $51 million), and that this overseas gambling website had thousands of illegal agents in China.

Zhang Yuxi, deputy head of the Internet Security Detachment of the Public Security Bureau of Fuling District calculated, based that two criminal gangs in Chongqing had at least 200 members in Guangdong, more than 1,000 agents across the country, and could involve more than 100,000 people.

36 suspects were arrested and the amount involved in the case exceeded 100 billion (*if correct, would be around $15.4 billion)

Due to the large number of people involved in the case, the wide scope, and the large amount of money, and the main suspects and criminal dens were outside the country, the Guangdong police immediately set up a task force. In August 2021, the case was listed as a “Jingwang 2021”- a Ministry Supervision Case overseen by the Ministry of Public Security.

Subsequently, the Chinese police cooperated with the Cambodian police to carry out investigations on suspects and gambling dens in Sihanoukville, Cambodia.

Policeman handling the case said: The building of the den is quite special. It is a kind of enclosure, surrounded by buildings, and the large walls are relatively high…. (it) looks relatively closed, a bit similar to a prison.

After investigation, on August 19, 2021, the task force, with the assistance of the Cambodian police, began to implement the network retraction operation.

Subsequently, the police successfully smashed 13 criminal dens in Cambodia and China in Shanghai, Fujian, Heilongjiang and other places, seized more than 100 mobile phones and computers, more than 100 bank cards, and froze more than 2,000 bank cards involved in the case. The total amount of funds involved was 1.1. More than 100 million yuan ($15.4 million).

Zhang Haoxin, a policeman from the Internet Security Corps of Guangdong Public Security Bureau said: According to our investigation, since January 1, 2018, the entire online gambling platform has involved more than 100 billion yuan (RMB).

After the centralized network collection operation, the police successively arrested eight main suspects of the gambling gang in Fujian, Guangxi, Yunnan and other places.

According to the police, the online gambling criminal gang has a complex structure, involving criminal chains inside and outside China, with over 1,000 agents across the country and more than 100,000 gamblers involved. So, how do gambling websites attract so many gamblers to participate in gambling?

It is understood that this type of gambling website basically relies on the results of each draw of the official lottery. Another website has been set up to set up a variety of betting methods to lure gamblers into gambling with a higher winning rate.

This kind of routine makes many people who participate in gambling feel that the dealer here cannot control the result of the lottery, and the odds are still very high. If you gamble in it, you will not only lose, but also win (see ‘Killing Pigs‘).

The police investigation found that the online gambling group formed a complete industrial chain of front, middle and back ends. Including the front-end overseas online gambling gangs; the mid-end professional money laundering gangs, commonly known as “water houses”; and the back-end black industry chain that provides technical support for online gambling. Once a gambling participant enters online gambling, he basically loses everything after becoming confident. Among the online gambling personnel are private business owners who have lost tens of millions, housewives who have lost the savings of their entire family, and unemployed people who have borrowed money for gambling and now in serious debt.

Zhang Haoxin, a policeman from the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau’s Internet Security Corps Investigation Division: As long as you participate in online gambling, you basically lose. Even if some people win a little today, they will definitely get deeper and deeper tomorrow. Therefore, I also advise my friends, never touch online gambling.

Source: Netease News/ Via TNAOT CHINA

EDIT: A commentator has replied that this is old news, from 2019, but the source above claims that this was August 2021.