Malaysia police vow biggest ever online gambling crackdown

Malaysian authorities are launching yet another national crackdown on illegal online gambling, and this time they swear it will actually produce the desired results.

On Tuesday, Deputy Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Noor Rashid Ibrahim (pictured) emerged from a strategic meeting with his state deputies to announce the formation of an “illegal gambling action committee to plan, analyze, synergize and execute the actions to be taken to completely wipe out illegal gambling once and for all.”

While the crackdown will start with raids on known illegal gambling dens, Noor Rashid said eradicating online gambling was a more “complicated task,” as “they mostly operate through servers located overseas and push their software through multiple collapsible local servers.”

The police plan to coordinate their anti-online efforts with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and internet service providers. The illegal gambling committee also plans to recommend amendments to Malaysia’s gambling laws, which Noor Rashid said contain loopholes that “prevent us from eradicating illegal gambling and allowing such operations to resurface again and persist with their activities.”