Malaysian Police reported on Friday about the arrest of Taiwanese and Chinese nationals who were involved in fraud football betting ring in the country which may have skimmed in around $US 1.3 billion. As a step to point out the growing illegal sports betting in Asia, a raid was conducted by the police in Kajang city near the capital Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.
Abdul Rashid Abdul Wahab, Kajang Police head, said it was found in the records of the betting ring that total income from fraud and betting over sports taken by them was nearly $A1.27 billion. He added that local were responsible for spreading this whole fraud thing and the real game was set up by foreigners only. The arrested personals mostly comprised of those from china and Taiwan with only five Malaysians in their gang. Out of these, 58 were women.
As told to AFP by police, the ring gambles over English Premier League football games and had constant communication with the felons in Mexico. Police is still trying to track down these contacts and no data on who was behind devising such a big operation has popped up. Along with this the ring also practiced
online scams, seeking credit card numbers of the people of china, Portugal and Taiwan.
After the completion of the investigation, foreign suspects are likely to be expatriated rather than charged. Many arrested suspects had come to the country in early march, added by the police chief.
According to the police, good telecommunication services and low cost of living were the main reasons why the groups choose Malaysia for their activity. The Star Newspaper reported that bungalows of culprit nationals were bugged with closed circuit security video camera systems and when police found the tape, the suspects were found involved in their telephones and laptops in a classroom like surrounding with tables in rows on it.
Football, especially the English game, is very popular sports among the folks of Malaysia but activities like betting and punting is illegal and punishable offense. The rampant illegal sports betting on football in Asia has becomes a major concern in the recent years for the authorities. There have been many raids conducted in the mainland of Hong Kong, China and Malaysia recently in which large amounts are confiscated and many are arrested but the problem still has many of its roots left.