Beijing: Chinese police said on Tuesday they have cracked an online cross-border gambling gang, arresting 36 suspects, 21 of them brought back from the Philippines.
Police in east China's Jiangsu Province closed down six gambling websites and seized computers, cellphones, bank cards in coordinated raids in Chongqing, Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangsu and Sichuan provinces in late April, said a statement by the Ministry of Public Security.
Arrests were made in the Philippines with the support of Philippine judicial authorities and the Chinese embassy, state-run Xinhua quoted the ministry as saying. Eleven major suspects will be dealt with by Yangzhou City People's Procuratorate in Jiangsu.
Evidence of the gambling was first found by the National Audit Office in early 2015. A preliminary investigation showed 320 million yuan (USD 48 million) changing hands since 2015.
The gang rented servers in places including Thailand and Hong Kong, with its service and financial personnel in the Philippines. Agents at home solicited customers.
