The Chinese police have successfully cracked down on an illegal gambling den that has been operating on the territory of the country. The culprits used Bitcoin to carry out their transactions. In the sting operation launched by Chinese security authorities, over 540 individuals, including the six organizers have been arrested. The complete number of seized Bitcoin value is estimated at $1.5 billion.
The Land of the Illegal Gambling
China definitely doesn’t look fondly at the idea of running online gambling operators. They are banned en masse with the little exception if any at all. With this in mind, the latest sting operation that focused on one of the largest such initiatives is no surprise to anyone involved.
The surge in betting activity was occasioned by the advancement of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Finals which made local authorities suspicious of the number of transfers taking place.
The responsible bodies in the Province of Guangdong managed to finally identify the origins of the gambling den and launched a massive operation that managed to round up all perpetrators in one go. Authorities estimate that everyone involved in the day-to-day activities and advertising the platform has been arrested.
Criminaly Begets Criminality
As a point of fact, the arrestees were associated with 20 different criminal gangs, which clearly indicated that this was not a matter of cracking down on law-abiding citizens. The spoils of this operation soared up to $1.5 billion, quite the staggering sum and indeed quite indicative of the scale of the operation.
The whole scheme involved 330,000 bettors who were not necessarily registering on their own, as the website encourages a pyramid-scheme whereby people were incentivized to bring in more customers. Overall, 70 promotional websites were used to bring in new players.
Another commonly used channel for criminals has been the messaging apps. However, China is effectively stepping up its efforts not only to censor the Internet, but to continually listen on the Internet as well in a bid to catch wrong-doers ahead of time.
As part of the country’s sweeping crackdown, 50,000 WeChat accounts have been closed along with other preventative measures. Bitcoin and gambling are two aspects of the Chinese ecosystem that are not looked favourably upon. The crackdown exemplifies the Communist Party’s aversion towards industries that may hew far from the central party line and try not to be directly subjected to its rulings.
No Country for Stray Dogs
The clampdown on gambling and cryptocurrencies has been quite palpable and the risks of running such operations from within China are quite dangerous indeed. Instead of focusing on setting up underhand operators, most bookmakers are now moving to neighbouring countries and setting up their companies as foundations which allows them a lot of legal leeways.
The spate of shut-downs has been indicative of the strong regulatory headwinds in the country. China has no immediate plans to show favor to segments that it considers to threaten and undermine the ideology the country itself has championed for years and intends to continue doing so uninterrupted.
