Guangdong toughens anti-gambling drive
GUANGDONG: As tourists enjoy their night boat trips along the Pearl River and pedestrians jostle to take photos at the landmark Canton Tower in Guangzhou, South China’s Guangdong Province, some others in the region are paying the bitter consequences of a global scourge: cross-border gambling.
From October 10 to 13, Guangdong police from four cities shared both their achievements and the challenges they faced in cracking down on cross- border gambling amid the coronavirus pandemic, emphasizing the new trends and direction of their future efforts.
Guangdong has made itself a role model and the frontline in the fight against cross-border gambling. By the end of September, the province had cracked more than 260 cases of crossborder gambling, arrested more than 4,700 suspects and frozen a bunch of illicit funds. Public security authorities also sent SMS messages to 155 million people, enhancing their awareness of law and self-protection.
In a conference that took place in February, the Ministry of Public Security expressed its determination to bolster efforts against gambling. Based on data from the ministry, until now, public security organs across China had handled over 8,800 crossborder gambling cases, arrested over 60,000 criminal suspects, identified over 1 trillion yuan in gamblingrelated funds and frozen a bunch of illicit funds.
Neighboring the South China Sea, Guangdong Province has been at the forefront of China’s opening-up and also encountered emerging problems ahead of other parts of China.
“We have never come across cases like this,” a police officer surnamed Lai from the public security bureau of Dongguan said at a press briefing after they had smashed a cross-border gambling syndicate that offered technical support and domestic advertising for an overseas gambling firm.
Dongguan police have arrested more than 60 people, frozen 300 million yuan in gambling-related funds, and cracked down on an underground bank since June.
A police officer said, gamblers’ money goes to underground money launderers, and involves the use of controversial virtual currencies such as USDT (Tether).
The public security authority of Huizhou outlined details of a crossborder gambling case they cracked in June. It was China’s first case involving operations from a fourthparty payment platform using digital currencies like USDT, according to public security authorities.
Huang Yusheng, the deputy head of the Huizhou public security bureau, told the GlobalTimes that if the gambling site’s servers are located overseas and the gambling money and profits flow abroad, the case will be identified as crossborder gambling.