Huge gambling racket busted

SHANGHAI - Police in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, have cracked a 5-billion-yuan ($735 million) online gambling racket and detained a gang of 30 members, eight of whom have been officially arrested.

The illegal betting scheme was orchestrated through a Malaysia-based website -www.fun88.com - which had hired over 300 agents and enrolled more than 22,000 gamblers through three affiliates in China over the past two years.

The website saw a monthly turnover of more than 200 million yuan, raking in a total of 5 billion yuan from Chinese gamblers within two years, police said on Thursday.