2 South Korean men arrested in Bangkok for operating gambling website

The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) arrested two South Korean men in Bangkok for operating an online gambling platform and overstaying their visas.

CIB officers were tipped off that two South Korean men had fled to Thailand after being arrested in their home country. CIB officers coordinated with the Republic of Korea Embassy in Thailand to trace their whereabouts. They were found living in separate houses in the Khlong Toei and Wattana districts of Bangkok.

Officers raided the houses and arrested the two foreigners yesterday, November 23. They have been identified as 30 year old Park Kyungjun and 38 year old Park Jongmin. They reportedly operated the gambling website in a neighbouring country to Thailand and fled to Bangkok to escape arrest.

Their gambling website is called Oppa Casino and its users are mainly South Korean nationals. The website had over 3 billion South Korean won (4.9 billion baht) in its coffers from the operation between January 2019 and June 2022.

In addition to the illegal gambling operation, the two were found to have overstayed their visas in Thailand. Park Kyungjun overstayed his visa by three months and 20 days, while Park Jongmin overstayed by 10 months and 16 days.

The two would be punished in Thailand for overstaying their visas before being transferred to South Korea to face further punishment for the illegal gambling website.

Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI) recently cracked down on the UFA gambling network and issued arrest warrants for 14 suspects, both Thai and foreign. Officers seized their assets, including two pull villas in Phuket valued at over 2 billion baht.

Apart from the arrest of the two foreigners, officers from the Immigration Bureau’s Investigation Division also announced three other successful arrests of wanted foreigners, including the arrest of four Pakistani nationals for visa fraud, the arrest of an Italian man for a theft case in Italy, and the arrest of a Russian man for illegally operating a financial institution in the Russian cities of Moscow and Bryansk.