Rolling the cyber dice: Thai police bust online gambling network

Police from the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau yesterday seized 329 million baht in assets and arrested four suspects in a crackdown on online gambling.

Following the crusade to shut down illegal online gambling in Thailand, police investigated a website, Fullplays 39, and discovered it offered online gambling games and had over 200,000 users. The amount of money circulating on the site was over 480 million baht per month.

Further investigation led to the issuance of arrest warrants for 16 suspects including one gambling business shareholder, one website administrator, two financial officers, and 12 mule account holders.

Police then raided 12 suspicious locations in search of the suspects including four houses in Bangkok and eight condominium rooms in Bangkok and Samut Prakarn provinces.

Officers arrested four of the 16 suspects, including the shareholder, the website administrator and two financial officers. Details of the gambling business owner were not revealed to the public.

During the raids, officers seized assets totalling 329 million baht, including seven luxury cars worth 40.4 million baht, 23 million baht in cash, 14 million baht of gold accessories and gold bars, and valuable amulets worth 75 million baht, as well as designer brand clothes, shoes and bags worth over 127 million baht.

Each suspect faces two charges including:

• Section 12 of the Gambling Act: organising or promoting gambling. The penalty is imprisonment of up to two years, a fine of up to 2,000 baht, or both.
• Section 5 of the Act to Prevent Money Laundering: conducting money laundering. The penalty is imprisonment for one to ten years, a fine of 20,000 to 200,000 baht, or both.

In a related report on online gambling, the Deputy Commissioner of the Royal Thai Police, Surachate “Big Joke” Hakparn, is also facing gambling accusations. His accusation follows the arrest of a leading gambling queen, Suchanun “Minnie” Sucharitchinsri, and eight police officers from Big Joke’s team.

Despite the financial links cited by the Central Investigation Bureau Commissioner Jaroonkiat Parnkaew, Big Joke continued to deny the allegations and insist on his innocence.