Chinese man’s gambling site bust leaves billions in losses

The Immigration Bureau of Thailand arrested a Chinese man for running an illegal gambling website that caused more than 2.5 billion baht in losses to people in China.

The Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Kingdom of Thailand requested cooperation from the Immigration Bureau to apprehend a 32 year old Chinese suspect named Huang who escaped an arrest for fraud in China.

The embassy reported that the Tianjin State Security Bureau (TSSB) in the Nankai district filed a lawsuit against a criminal gang called Zhonghe for operating a fraudulent business. They ran a gambling website, WANHE Football, based in a country outside of mainland China and lured Chinese victims into investing in the platform.

The gambling website invited victims to bet on various sports competitions and used the high profits from betting to attract their attention. Zhonghe operated the site between March 2022 and April last year, causing losses of more than 2.5 billion baht.

Further investigation into the fraud revealed that Huang was responsible for advertising and promoting the gambling platform. An arrest warrant was issued for him in December last year.

Huang then fled China and entered Thailand using a Cambodian passport. Immigration police tracked him down and arrested him in Bangkok’s Sathon district on February 8. He was deported to China for further legal proceedings.

In a similar report, another Chinese man, 34 year old Chen Guang, was arrested last month in the northern province of Chiang Mai on money laundering charges.

Chen was arrested following further investigations into the call centre fraud gangs. Thai police discovered that money from the scam was being transferred to bank accounts held by Chinese nationals in Thai banks. The money was withdrawn by Chen in Chiang Mai province.

Chen confessed that he hired Chinese people to open Thai bank accounts and kept the debit cards to withdraw money. He would exchange Thai currency for yuan before transferring it to his boss in China.