Indonesia arrests 5 foreigners suspected in online gambling syndicate

[Orpichukwu]

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia's Immigration Office has arrested five foreign nationals from China and Vietnam suspected of being part of an international online gambling syndicate.

According to Banten Immigration Office Head Barron Ichsan, the five foreigners were arrested following an inspection of their place of stay on September 7, during which officers found "an unreasonable number of electronic devices operating automatically."

"During the inspection, our officers confiscated one computer, one laptop, and 26 cellphones," Ichsan said of the operation in his remarks on Saturday.

I think this is the second time I’m seeing cases of a country arresting foreigners who are said to be operating illegal gambling businesses in the country, which brings me to the question of why someone would leave their own country and go to the country of others just to open up an illegal gambling business.

Can't they open and operate such from wherever they are? Do they need to live in the country since the casino is illegal and they don’t own any physical office?

[Sim_card]

Don't be surprised that it's these people that do go to a different country to run an illegal gambling business might not be clean and have the plans to scam gamblers through their gambling platform. However, gambling is illegal in main China and if you are caught running a gambling syndicate, you have committed an organized crime. Maybe, that was why these guys left China down to Indonesia to commit this crime but get bursted by Indonesia immigration.

[o48o]

-cut-
Can't they open and operate such from wherever they are? Do they need to live in the country since the casino is illegal and they don’t own any physical office?

First thing that comes to mind is that it could be hard to run gambling servers when you are citizen of China, as they have next level dystopian surveillance and if i was a criminal, i wouldn't risk running my operation from there. I am not sure how that works in Vietnam, but if i wanted customers from indonesia, i can see several benefits for running operation in there. Just the cheap local customer service would be a good reason.

It doesn't say what kind of gambling operation they were running exactly, so i don't see a reason to speculate about the other logistics. But just buying the VPN and servers that are needed might be easier to run then in their home country, especially if they collaborate with locals.

[Sandra_hakeem]

You didn't provide a link to this post to make it easy for anyone who wants to get verifiable informations on this case. The quote doesn't provide enough details as it should.

~snipwhich brings me to the question of why someone would leave their own country and go to the country of others just to open up an illegal gambling business.

To make money of course. Gambling is strictly illegal in China under their national laws and we all know what it means if something is "illegal" in China. There are no maneuvers to it  perhaps, so they can't operate a sever from their country to other places to provide gambling services. The risk of messing up other people's country because they all want to make money is far more outrageous than the act itself.

Can't they open and operate such from wherever they are? Do they need to live in the country since the casino is illegal and they don’t own any physical office?

[Su-asa]

I'm not sure that the people the authorities arrested are the real owners of the online betting platform; they might just be another team member putting things together for the casino. Maybe they are part of the payment provider team or telemarketers, and so on. We understand that they are not operating legally, but we are not certain that the foreigners who are arrested are planning to scam their players either, as they are not the actual owners of the online casino. The thing is that we shouldn't conclude yet whether they are planning on scamming anyone until there is evidence that proves it.

Edit: Lastly, the reason why they are not working in their country might be that they want to place themselves where they could easily get traffic no their site or an environment without much law enforcement.

[leonair]

There are some gangs in China and Vietnam who go to different countries and set different types of traps. Many such news are seen, although China is a very good country, they are one of the most famous countries in the world in terms of technology. From there, some gangs use their technology to form different types of syndicates. I have also seen that some Chinese syndicates traffick women from different Asian countries by tempting them with marriage.

Online gambling syndicates have increased worldwide and so that those who syndicate here cannot be tracked easily, they go from their own country to another country and run syndicates. Because currently online gambling is capturing a very large market and there is an opportunity to do business worth billions of dollars here. Because the youth is very addicted to gambling. And considering these aspects, different types of syndicate parties are spreading to different countries and continuing their activities from there.

[Orpichukwu]

Don't be surprised that it's these people that do go to a different country to run an illegal gambling business might not be clean and have the plans to scam gamblers through their gambling platform. However, gambling is illegal in main China and if you are caught running a gambling syndicate, you have committed an organized crime. Maybe, that was why these guys left China down to Indonesia to commit this crime but get bursted by Indonesia immigration.

It was only because gambling is illegal in China, and they are operating illegal something in another country; the same punishment will still be served to them. I think there is more to it than just the gambling not being legal in their country; maybe it has more to do with the server, etc.

You didn't provide a link to this post to make it easy for anyone who wants to get verifiable informations on this case. The quote doesn't provide enough details as it should.
y physical office

The link is in the image; you should have noticed it if you clicked on the image or when you clicked to quote part of my text.

[Accardo]

First thing that comes to mind is that it could be hard to run gambling servers when you are citizen of China, as they have next level dystopian surveillance and if i was a criminal, i wouldn't risk running my operation from there. I am not sure how that works in Vietnam, but if i wanted customers from indonesia, i can see several benefits for running operation in there. Just the cheap local customer service would be a good reason.

It doesn't say what kind of gambling operation they were running exactly, so i don't see a reason to speculate about the other logistics. But just buying the VPN and servers that are needed might be easier to run then in their home country, especially if they collaborate with locals.

It depends on the gaming event they went there to manipulate, horse race is common in Asia, I guess Indonesia have fishing games too, events like this is more of domestic than international, I don't think they'll have to travel down to another country if it could be done with a VPN. These syndicate do build software that cracks down on physical bet competitions to compete against other players using thousands of bet openings.

[Rockstarguy]

I think this is the second time I’m seeing cases of a country arresting foreigners who are said to be operating illegal gambling businesses in the country, which brings me to the question of why someone would leave their own country and go to the country of others just to open up an illegal gambling business.

Can't they open and operate such from wherever they are? Do they need to live in the country since the casino is illegal and they don’t own any physical office?

It is possible that the country they are from restricts gambling companies from operating, and even if gambling sites do operate, it seems the country is strict with gambling sites, which might make it difficult for them to run their illegal gambling operations. They think that moving to a place with no strict regulations will be better for the business and for how they want to run it.

The particular country where they were caught could be a gambling-friendly country. No investor, whether legal or illegal, would want to be in a place where they can't make a profit.

[Fortify]

Well clearly they cannot operate from their home countries and that is probably the very reason they're based in Indonesia for more safety. It would be curious to know what exactly they were doing, taking bets from locals while trying to avoid local restrictions or taking bets from their home countries while trying to avoid higher penalties at home? I'm thinking that Indonesia is pretty anti-gambling so I'd probably go with the first one, they were aiming to take bets from Indonesians and place those bets on the many websites that would take them. Sometimes you need to be on the ground in these countries for people to really trust you and maybe they're targeting mid to high net worth individuals, rather than scraping around at the bottom end of the market. If they are a "syndicate" maybe they thought they'd be safe because they were just taking money from China and Vietnam, in a place not monitored by the Great Firewall and taking bets over international calls. China might have tipped off the Indonesian authorities if they did care.

[alani123]

It's good for indonesia that they bother to arreest such criminals while the European Union lets Israeli moghouls roam free setting up thousands of casinos skimming hundreds of millions from their citizens without even having a licence and evading the law left and right. The Soft2bet scandal is so well publicized and yet no arrest have been made nearly a year later after the revelations of this syndicate operating in european soil and defrauding eu citizens and not only.

I wish more countriees would follow Indonesia's example to go hard against scam gambling site operators.

[Wiwo]

Foreigners mostly promote and carry out illegal activities because they have nothing to lose. Also, most of those involved in such criminal acts are those that whoady have cases from their home country, talking about wanted criminal who just escape to other countries without documents. Hence, they continue with their operations without minding what the outcome could be be.

We have cases like this in my country too because recently there has been a wave of Illegal activities that involve cybercrimes, ranging from Ponzi schemes or romance scams to the rest of it.

We shouldn't be surprised to see forensic investigations linking them to other crimes.

[Cryptomultiplier]

Foreigners mostly promote and carry out illegal activities because they have nothing to lose. Also, most of those involved in such criminal acts are those that whoady have cases from their home country, talking about wanted criminal who just escape to other countries without documents. Hence, they continue with their operations without minding what the outcome could be be.

We have cases like this in my country too because recently there has been a wave of Illegal activities that involve cybercrimes, ranging from Ponzi schemes or romance scams to the rest of it.

We shouldn't be surprised to see forensic investigations linking them to other crimes.

Some of these criminals actually have real documents and entered the country with legit reasons as to their visit,but end up doing just the exact opposite of what they claim to be doing thinking that they are safer in another man's country than theirs.

The Asia continent continues to be hard on illegal gambling operations and I don't know why people still indulge in it knowing how open the eyes of the government is in this regard.

It is a warning to others operating illegal sites both in the country and in other countries to desist from such act and if they must do so, they should obtain the right licenses needed to operate freely or face  the consequences of their actions.

[Ayers]

Can't they open and operate such from wherever they are? Do they need to live in the country since the casino is illegal and they don’t own any physical office?

Actually there is no requirement for operator to be physically present in any country where they operates. Servers, hosting and even payment infrastructure can be located in other country.

Looking at this incident in Indonesia, I realized that such syndicate has wide range of task to handle. Managing multiple device and account, handling customer and administrative task, coordinating entire payment process and utilizing local intermediaries etc. For these activity, maintaining such physical team or any local operating center can be convenient for them.

[Wiwo]

Some of these criminals actually have real documents and entered the country with legit reasons as to their visit,but end up doing just the exact opposite of what they claim to be doing thinking that they are safer in another man's country than theirs.

The Asia continent continues to be hard on illegal gambling operations and I don't know why people still indulge in it knowing how open the eyes of the government is in this regard.

It is a warning to others operating illegal sites both in the country and in other countries to desist from such act and if they must do so, they should obtain the right licenses needed to operate freely or face  the consequences of their actions.

First off, my comment was is not generally about this Indonesia alone but on a general note, but even though you said some of the arrested  have legal entry, but still if investigation is properly conducted, you will see that the majority of them are in Indonesia without proper documents.

For someone that knows that that their documents can be affected, they will definitely be guided not to indulge in such crimes that can affect their stay in a country.

[JunaidAzizi]

I heard some more stories of foreigners doing illegal activities in other states, and most of the time, I saw the Chinese. Recently, in my country, Chinese and other state residents were arrested for illegal activities in large numbers. They were all kept by the police in a building and then handed over to the Chinese embassy i think. The reason behind going to another state is that the law enforcement may be weaker, making the country they are going to more vulnerable to these activities, and they go there.

[Zlantann]

I think this is the second time I’m seeing cases of a country arresting foreigners who are said to be operating illegal gambling businesses in the country, which brings me to the question of why someone would leave their own country and go to the country of others just to open up an illegal gambling business.

Can't they open and operate such from wherever they are? Do they need to live in the country since the casino is illegal and they don’t own any physical office?

The question is, why do people leave their country to establish a business in foreign lands? It might be that it is easier to establish these casinos in other countries. It could also be that there is a large market for illegal gambling in Indonesia.

Gambling is highly restricted in Vietnam and China, which might be why their nationals are establishing these platforms abroad. They might also be avoiding harsh punishments in their home country.

[Ryu_Ar1]

I think this is the second time I’m seeing cases of a country arresting foreigners who are said to be operating illegal gambling businesses in the country, which brings me to the question of why someone would leave their own country and go to the country of others just to open up an illegal gambling business.

Can't they open and operate such from wherever they are? Do they need to live in the country since the casino is illegal and they don’t own any physical office?

This is likely to happen due to several aspects especially from the weak regulation of gambling in the country you want to go to and in this case Indonesia is certainly one of the countries where gambling is very much with very weak regulations.

In our country (Indonesia) gambling is illegal but because of the weak supervision and regulation of sanctions given and there are still a lot of corrupt officials it allows gambling to be a thing that looks free and this will be a greater advantage for the bookmakers.  In addition even though they may get sanctions later. They wont be as severe as those in their country and that is indeed proven because in the end what happens in Indonesia sometimes when the bookies and players are caught doing/operating gambling, usually the players who have a slightly heavier penalty for several reasons.

[skarais]

Don't be surprised that it's these people that do go to a different country to run an illegal gambling business might not be clean and have the plans to scam gamblers through their gambling platform. However, gambling is illegal in main China and if you are caught running a gambling syndicate, you have committed an organized crime. Maybe, that was why these guys left China down to Indonesia to commit this crime but get bursted by Indonesia immigration.

Gambling is also illegal in Indonesia, but I think these suspects like to know how to play so they can run their business in Indonesia. We know that illegal business is very difficult to run smoothly if not assisted by law enforcement officers, this is a loophole that tends to be exploited by illegal businesses and as far as I know that it is an open secret. The above case is not the first time it has been revealed, in fact I am very sure there are many other syndicates that are not revealed and are still running their businesses.

The question is, why do people leave their country to establish a business in foreign lands? It might be that it is easier to establish these casinos in other countries. It could also be that there is a large market for illegal gambling in Indonesia.

You are right, the gambling market in Indonesia is very high and potential, that is the reason why these people choose Indonesia in addition to the existence of loopholes that can be exploited.

[DrBeer]

Well, if in their country, for example, running such a business carries a penalty of life imprisonment or the death penalty, it’s logical to assume they’ll look for jurisdictions where the risks and the punishment itself are lower. Or, even with the same risks, you’ll reach a wider audience. Let’s take the example of a drug dealer: selling cheap drugs right next to a police station in a business district isn’t very smart, but in poor neighborhoods of a depressed region, it’s quite effective. No, I’m not comparing Indonesia to a "depressed region" - Indonesia is one of the regional leaders in Southeast Asia - it’s just that this example makes the point clearer.
 
The question is: what’s the situation in Indonesia regarding these two indicators:
- Legal restrictions on gambling and penalties for violating the law?
- To what extent is the population prone to gambling?