Guangdong police detain 140 in online gambling crackdown

Police in Guangdong province have detained 140 people after busting a major online gambling ring in Jiangmen, a city in the western part of the Pearl River Delta.

"The detainees include more than 74 bankers, organizers, gang heads and key members," Cai Hui, director of the Guangdong Public Security Bureau, told a news conference in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, on Thursday.

"Investigations found the gang, which had been active for years, set up six special websites to attract online gamblers from major cities in the Pearl River Delta and neighboring Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region."

He said an investigation that began in December found the case involved more than 1.3 billion yuan ($205.64 million) wagered on sports, lotteries and virtual casino games. Police had frozen more than 2,900 bank accounts suspected of having been used for online gambling.

A large number of bank cards, mobile phones and computers were seized in two police raids, on March 12 and April 2, as part of the operation, code-named Jufeng 3.