Taiwanese arrested as cops bust transnational gambling ring with $785,000 daily betting

By Dac Thanh   July 1, 2024 | 10:34 pm PT
Taiwanese arrested as cops bust transnational gambling ring with $785,000 daily betting
A laptop and smartphones used by Taiwanese man Shen Chia Chi to operate an online gambling racket in Vietnam as seized by police. Photo by police
Police in the central Quang Nam Province have arrested a Taiwanese man for alleged involvement in a cross-border online gambling operation involving stakes of VND20 billion (US$785,000) a day.

Shen Chia Chi, 44, is being investigated for "illegally transporting money across the border," the police said Monday.

They said the arrest came after they discovered an online gambling ring that accepted bets on lottery results, football matches and online games from hundreds of thousands of punters.

The website has its server in the Philippines and the U.S. and is run by foreigners who use numerous bank accounts and e-wallets for gamblers to make and receive payments, including Shen's.

In early June the province police, in coordination with the Ministry of Public Security's specialized units, located Shen and arrested him at an apartment he had bought in Hanoi for living.

He has entered Vietnam multiple times since 2022, opened six bank accounts in his name and illegally acquired 30 bank accounts and 40 e-wallets from various local people. Police did not explain how he acquired others' bank accounts and used them.

After analyzing the payment data, the police determined the ring had transacted around VND20 billion a day.

Money from all the accounts totaling VND875 billion were transferred to Shen, who used it to buy virtual currency such as Binance, OKK and Biget to transfer out of Vietnam.

He confessed to earning VND5 billion and using VND3 billion from it to buy the Hanoi apartment.

The case is under further investigation.

 
 
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