Thailand, Malaysia cracking anti-online gambling whips

Thailand’s anti-online gambling efforts continue to show results, while Malaysia’s crackdowns keep exposing crooked cops.

Earlier this month, Thai police staged raids in multiple cities that led to the arrest of 25 suspects accused of running six unauthorized online gambling sites based around a ‘UFA’ brand. Police seized the usual crop of computers, phones and cash, then transferred the suspects to Bangkok for interrogation.

Leads generated from those interrogations led to this week’s arrests of four more suspects in Bangkok, including the alleged ringleader, a 24-year-old named Tantai Narongkul, who reportedly admitted to operating nine illegal sites branded with variations on UFA, Sexygame and SSgame.

This week’s arrests were accompanied by a much larger haul of material goods, including 11 luxury cars worth a combined THB75m (US$2.4m) and THB1m in cash. Tantai’s ring reportedly enjoyed turnover of THB15b ($480m) in the past six months from the gambling ring, which based its servers outside the country.