Society

Guangxi police destroy online gambling ring

By Yan Weijue (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-07-01 15:32

An online gambling syndicate was busted in June by police Guangxi autonomous region after a 32-month investigation and search, gxnews.com.cn reported Thursday.

More than 100 suspects have been arrested, with a record high stake of several hundred billion yuan.

Police said the gambling syndicate was complicated, operating a national network, and it took them more than two years to finish the whole crackdown.

In October 2007, Laibing city police in Guangxi broke up a gambling ring running a racket called "liuhecai" or "mark-six lottery," and found it was just the tip of the iceberg. Police then tracked down the clues, and discovered a large underground gambling syndicate that operated online.

On Jan 13, 2008, police smashed another branch of the syndicate in Liuzhou city, nabbing seven people and a slew of crime evidence, with stakes up to several hundred billion yuan from October 2006 to January 2008.

In 2009, police carried out three raids, arresting 84 suspects and seizing more than 10 million yuan in betting funds and some gambling paraphernalia.

From March 11 to March 31, 2010, police implemented two more crackdowns in Liuzhou, Nanning and Guiping, nabbing 41 suspects, 39 computers, 11 cars and freezing 41 illegal accounts worth 1.9 million yuan.

On June 7,2010, the leader of the gambling syndicate was arrested in his club in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. Another 27 gang members were caught later, along with 18 cell phones, 24 computers, 13 cars, three hunting rifles, 160 bullets, 35 passbooks, 64 bank cards, 700,000 yuan and UK$600,000 in cash. A total of 42.5 million yuan was frozen.