100 million baht illegal online gambling bust in Bangkok

Continuing their raids on illegal gambling sites and online scams, police have busted an internet gambling ring moving a 100 million baht per month. Today’s bust was in Bangkok following an investigation tracing the origins of a gambling website called PGSLOT889. Police raided a condominium in the Bangkok Noi district today and arrested 19 people allegedly involved in the online betting site.

The illegal online gambling website was set up spread across 3 separate condos in the Pinklao River Park View condominium in Bangkok Noi. Investigators tracked the online operations to the rooms on the 11th and 15th floors, according to police officials.

The Criminal Court issued a warrant to search the rooms in question. Police took into custody at the scene 11 women and 8 men who will face illegal gambling charges for the online betting site. The nationalities of those arrested were not reported. In those rooms, the police confiscated 27 mobile phones, 30 monitors, 8 computers, 7 bank books, and 17 ATM cards.

Authorities studying the operations of the gambling website have estimated that a minimum of 100 million baht of bets had been placed through the site each month. Police will continue their investigation and widen their search to find other illegal online gambling operations that may be connected to this one.

Illegal online gambling websites have been a growing problem, perhaps fueled by the economic devastation of the Covid-19 pandemic. Police have been active in investigating and tracking down these operations with the most recent bust just 2 days ago in Pattaya with 6 Thai people arrested for a site earning 10,000 baht a day. The day before that an online gambling ring of recent graduates was busted in Bangkok. And just a few months ago another group of Thai and Chinese nationals was arrested in Bangkok with over 15 million baht of assets seized in a large online gambling operation set up in 4 houses.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post