China’s security officials had “destroyed” during 2024 “over 4,500” online gambling platforms and probed “73,000” cases that were said to involve so-called cross-border gambling activities, the country’s Ministry of Public Security said in a Thursday update.
It also mentioned that the authorities had “destroyed… solicitation networks and underground banks” on the Chinese mainland that had been run by several large-scale “overseas gambling groups”.
For Chinese officials, “overseas gambling” can include land-based and online activities. “Cross-border gambling” is usually understood specifically to mean indviduals crossing China’s territorial boundaries to gamble.
Regarding various alleged services for gambling outside China’s borders, the ministry said a three-year investigation conducted by the authorities in the city of Chongqing, Sichuan province, had led in October to the breaking up of a gang it termed the “DC Group”.
The gang had “long been stationed in the Philippines”, the Thursday update stated. It had recruited Chinese nationals for its operations and marketing work for online gaming platforms, according to mainland media reports at the time of the October bust.
The ministry’s Thursday statement also mentioned that “11,000” criminal suspects had been detected last year, as a result of the police tackling 45 “prominent” cross-border gambling crime cases.
Land-based casino play and online gambling is illegal on the mainland, as is the marketing within the mainland of gambling operations based outside the mainland’s borders.
The ministry didn’t give any year-on-year comparisons in the figures it quoted for 2024.
The security ministry also noted it had worked with several other Chinese government departments to disrupt payment channels that supported gambling activities, including “livestream-based” online gambling, and illegal lotteries, as well as investment and labour deployment related to those activities.
Cross-departmental efforts had been made in enforcing China’s “blacklist system” for cross-border gambling destinations frequented by Chinese tourists, the ministry said.
The update also mentioned China’s collaboration with other countries on the cross-border gambling issue.
That included the repatriation from Cambodia – via mainland-police-chartered flights – of “over 1,200” Chinese nationals allegedly been involved in scams and gambling crimes. The moves – in April and November last year – were handled by the respective security authorities of China’s Hubei and Shanxi provinces, according to the Thursday update.
China Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian said in a Wednesday press briefing the country would strengthen law enforcement efforts with neighbouring nations, to crack down against online gambling and telecom fraud.
He made the remarks in response to a query about a widely-publicised recent string of alleged cross-border telecom fraud cases along the Thailand-Myanmar border.
