News

Sunday, 20 June 2010 07:51

Another massive Internet gambling syndicate has just been eliminated by the on-going crackdown by police in China in Jiangsu Province.

The continuing battle raging between the authorities and the Internet gambling companies operating illegally in China has see police take another scalp in Jiangsu Province this week. This follows several high profile arrests in recent weeks with the dismantling of several massive online gambling syndicates that have been operating illegally and making millions of Yuan in the process.

This latest series of arrests included more than thirty suspects from a gambling ring which was backed by several international investors. They uncovered information that showed the ring had a 22,000 strong customer base of gamblers from all over the country. The identities of those customers, which include foreigners working in the country as well as local civil servants and other professional people, has now been turned over to the Ministry of Public Security who will take further action as appropriate.

Officers from the Public Security Bureau's Internet inspection division coordinated the series of raids that followed long hours of police surveillance that were set up following information gained after the arrest of a local government office driver in February 2010. The gambling websites that were involved in the syndicate's operations were hosted offshore in places like the Philippines and Taiwan. They were owned by an online gambling company based overseas and which ran three mainland based companies whose business it was to promote the syndicate's gambling business via a network of three hundred agents. Those agents were paid between 25 and 40 percent in commissions.

It was discovered that just one of those companies were transacting illegal business totalling around 200 million Yuan ($29m) every month. Customers were placing bets using money they had deposited into payment websites, which enabled them to make sports and card game wagers using live video streaming.

A police spokesman said that one bank worker in Shanghai had embezzled almost 18 million Yuan ($2.6m) from his employer to pay for his internet gambling. He said that online casinos presents exciting possibilities to some Internet users while it is comparatively difficult to be spotted doing so. Many young people learn how to play all the online games then gravitate to online gambling out of curiosity and then become addicted to it.

Chinese authorities have so far managed to freeze 110 million Yuan ($16m) from the company's operational funds estimated at around 5 billion Yuan ($731m).