Hunan police bust huge online gambling racket

CHANGSHA - Police in central China's Hunan province have detained 19 alleged members of an online gambling gang, in a case that involved transactions totaling in excess of 300 million yuan ($46 million).

Loudi City Police have frozen more than 200 bank accounts, and confiscated 11 limousines and over 100 computers in their three-month investigation, the city government said in a statement Tuesday.

The online gambling came to light in January, when two residents in Liudi informed police that they had lost money on an illegal lottery website. One of them had lost more than 80,000 yuan in just five days.

Investigators found that the three major suspects -- the webmasters, who hail from southeast China's Fujian -- started to make profits from their gambling websites in 2014. They first used servers and and financial management systems in Malaysia, and then transferred to the Philippines following a government crackdown. They also established more than 30 advertizing companies to promote their online gambling services.

The gang's websites had more than 10,000 users, according to police.