Society

HK police seizes $46m illegal betting slips during World Cup

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-07-16 22:55

HONG KONG - Hong Kong police announced on Firday that a total of 361 million HK dollars ($46.3 million) worth of betting slips were seized in the anti-illegal bookmaking operations during the World Cup, almost five times that seized during the last edition of the top soccer tournament in 2006.

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Within the month-long intensified operational period from June 11 to July 12, HK police conducted licensed checks at 1,295 entertainment premises and searched a total of 139 locations. In 96 successful raids, 166 males and 69 females, aged between 16 and 79 years, were arrested, mainly for "engaging in bookmaking", "betting with a bookmaker" and "dealing with proceeds known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence".

In the operation, the police also seized betting slips amounting to 361 million HK dollars, 77 computers and one computer server, and restrained assets valued at 34 million HK dollars.

During the previous World Cup in 2006, the police arrested 196 suspects and seized 74.5 million HK dollars worth of betting records in 99 successful raids.

Within the operations, there were two significant cross-boundary bookmaking cases jointly detected by Hong Kong police and the Chinese mainland police, one of which saw a total of 112 arrests and the value of betting slips reaching over 8.1 billion HK dollars in the action on July 7 and 8.

In the two joint operations against illegal cross-boundary bookmaking, the betting slips seized by HK police amounted to 143.8 million HK dollars, which made up 40 percent of the total amount of betting slips seized during the whole operations.

In recent years, bookmaking syndicates have engaged in cross-boundary operations to avoid police detection, but the HK police believed that the successful cooperation between HK police and the Public Security Bureau of the Chinese mainland had a strong deterrent effect on criminals.

The spokesman from HK police said they will continue exchanging intelligence and cooperating with law enforcement agencies on the mainland, in Macao and in overseas countries to combat illegal bookmaking activities.

The police added that officers of the Police Technology Crime Division are currently examining the computers and server seized during the operations to investigate the identities of the bookmakers, agents and punters.

With wider use of the internet and the increasing number of internet users, illegal bookmakers had used mobile phones and the internet as platforms for receiving bets in most of the cases.