In full compliance with the central government’s policy against cross-border gambling, border control will be tightened to curb organized illegal immigration for gambling, Zhang Ning, spokesperson of China’s National Immigration Administration has been cited as saying.
According to China News, Zhang was asked at a recent press conference about the country’s efforts in restraining people from leaving the country to conduct gambling activities.
The spokesperson admitted that foreign and domestic criminal syndicates had joined together to transport Chinese nationals out of the country for gambling or telecom fraud.
She said the administration will try to control the situation in three areas.
First, tighter border controls will be implemented to obstruct channels of illegal human and resource movements. Tactics such as technologies, techniques and human experience will be employed to achieve results. Suspicious individuals will be arrested upon interception. Syndicate chiefs will be pursued.
Second, domestic education will be escalated to warn people against gambling and swindling, through means such as billboards, placards and videos at border checkpoints, direct text messages, as well as announcement of typical cases.
Third, a peer-report mechanism will be established to encourage members of the public to report on suspicious activities, in the hopes of creating peer impacts on the prevention of illegal gambling and other activities.
China’s state-owned Xinhua News Agency reported that immigration departments nationwide have led the crackdown on crimes against national border (frontier) control and on cross-border criminal activities.
In the first six months of 2023, 16,000 cases of obstructing national border (frontier) control were handled by the authorities, with 32,000 suspects arrested. Another 547 suspects were detained in 375 drug-related cases, with over 5 tonnes of drugs seized.
Xinhua also cited data released by the administration as disclosing that around 80.3 million of the total entries and exits were made by mainland residents, and 74.9 million by residents from the two special administrative regions and Taiwan. The number of documents issued for travel between the mainland and Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan jumped 15-fold year on year to 42.8 million, it added.
