CRIME | Police bust gambling syndicate siphoning enough to make a casino blush

Mainland police have busted an online gambling syndicate that they say generated more than RMB500 billion (HKD608 billion) in bets, and which had a membership of nearly one million users.
The Beijing News reported that the syndicate had a complex structure with overseas divisions administering over 500 websites, targeting mainland gamblers. While the main server was in Taiwan, Cantonese and Mandarin-
speaking customer service staff were situated in Hong Kong, Thailand and the Philippines.
The police estimated that the online network had accumulated more than HKD608 billion in bets from its customer base, of which no fewer than 120,000 registered gamblers were actively betting on the websites at any one time.
The HKD608 billion accumulated by the syndicate dwarfs the revenues of some of the biggest casino operators in Macau. Sands China’s four casinos in Macau recorded USD8.35 billion (HKD64.72 billion) in net revenue last year, while SJM Holdings took in HKD79.2 billion.
The massive crackdown, called Operation 109, began last year and involved 84 arrests in July in several cities throughout Guangdong province. The police action in this case was only revealed when the crackdown was announced by the Ministry of Public security on Tuesday.
“From our data analysis, every sign is pointing to a professional team working in the background,” said Peng Zhihong, from the Yueyang Public Security Bureau’s internet crime investigation unit in Hunan.
The police said that the suspects used false identity cards and “illegitimate” mobile phone cards to create identities, and that the investigation was made challenging by the operators’ strategy of regularly disposing of their computer and communication equipment.
According to the report, winnings were paid into users’ bank accounts. Gamblers who lost were required to pay their losses back to the website, while those who didn’t repay would trigger unspecified retaliation.
The mastermind was identified as a 39-year-
old man surnamed Xu from Chaoshan in eastern Guangdong. Xu rented most of the gambling websites in the network to smaller groups, which operated as companies, for between RMB30,000 and 50,000 per month.
A Shenzhen-based internet technology company was reported to have provided coding and website design for the server in Taiwan.