MASSIVE ONLINE GAMBLING BUST IN CHINA
19 June 2009
Chinese police uncover major gambling cases,
launch a global hunt for seven principals
The Xinhua News Agency reports that Chinese police have
busted six serial gambling cases involving a total of
some 50 billion yuan (about US$ 7 billion), and have
launched a global hunt for seven principals involved in
the cases.
Gong Dao'an, chief of the Public
Security Bureau in Xianning City, in central China's
Hubei Province, said the bureau had spent over a year on
the six cases.
"We found tens of thousands of
gamblers from around the country took part in gambling
organised by six gangs between 2004 and 2009," he
revealed. "Most of the gambling funds have flowed to
overseas online gambling groups through underground
money laundering channels," said the police chief,
adding that his investigators have so far recovered only
800 million yuan funds through freezing the gangs' local
bank accounts.
"We are seeking international
cooperation to help cut off the money laundering
channels, which circulated the gambling funds overseas,"
said the police chief, without giving details of
cooperation or identifying the Internet gambling
websites involved.
Gong Dao'an said the
investigations bureau started to check five Internet
sports gambling websites in 2007, which offered gambling
on football, horse racing and card games, and received
stakes from people in 10 Chinese provinces and cities.
"We found the sites were operated by gang
members. Some of the gangs used leased servers in the
United States, Singapore and the Republic of Korea to
run online gambling websites, and others acted as agents
for overseas gambling websites. They developed gamblers
in China's mainland for the websites," said Gong.
He revealed that 27 unnamed members of the gangs had
been given jail terms, and 30 other gang members were
expected to be charged later this month as
investigations continued to develop.
"Through
the detection of the five cases, police found clues to
another gambling gang, which organised gamblers in
casinos in Macao, Taiwan, the Philippines, Singapore and
Malaysia, and lent out money at high interest rate to
gamblers," said Gong.
The gang leader Liu Qingli
surrendered to the police in May this year. He confessed
that the gang sought customers, mainly rich businessmen,
to gamble overseas. The gang with 18 business
development agents and 125 members made business worth
20 billion yuan.
One of the gang's customers,
who was only identified as a manager of a coal mine in
north China's Shanxi Province, gambled away 400 million
Hong Kong dollars on a week-long trip to Macao in June
last year, said Gong.
He said the cases are
still under investigation.
The police chief
commented that gambling criminals are usually given jail
terms from three to 10 years, which are not heavy enough
to act as a deterrent.
Online Casino News Courtesy of
Infopowa
More news here.
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