Authorities in South Korea have claimed the biggest illegal gambling raid in their history as they made arrests linked to a network worth over 23trn won (£13m).
The South Chungcheong Provincial Police Agency said that 77 arrests were made in total and 21 were detained after being charged with crimes related to illegally opening gambling spaces.
According to the Korean outlet Hankookilbo, the network consisted of 188 sites that managed stakes of 23trn Won and generated proceeds of up to 150bn won (£84.7m), and had offices in Vietnam, Cambodia and Korea.
Kim Tae-woo, Head of the Cyber Investigation Unit at the South Chungcheong Provincial Police Agency, commented: “Through this investigation, we disrupted the top-tier supply chain and achieved the effect of causing large-scale gambling sites to wither away. We will continue to conduct crackdown activities centred on the top-tier supply chain.”
Authorities said that they tracked 795 financial accounts during their investigations following arrests made last November of a lower-level gambling site group.
The network reportedly hired a developer from a large Korean conglomerate who developed a system allowing new websites to be created in ten minutes. The group also hired computer cafe owners to attract new gamblers.
Of the 77 people arrested, 25 were members of the gambling site supply organisation, 33 were members of the operation organisation, and 19 were gambling participants.
Police have also issued an Interpol Red Notice calling for the extradition of 12 people who fled overseas.
Online casino and sports betting are prohibited in Korea. However, the country is home to an extensive black market estimated to be 49trn won (£23.9bn), according to the National Gambling Control Commission of Korea.
For comparison, the regulated sector is worth only 6.9trn won (£3.36bn).
News of this raid follows an announcement in June that the Korean police had identified over 2000 suspects with alleged links to illegal gambling.
At the time, the National Office of Investigation under the National Police Agency reported that it had made 154 arrests across 1,746 cases and seized 107.2bn won (£52.2m) in assets from suspected criminal networks.
