Cambodia: Police raided a casino building for illegal gambling
Police have raided a venue in Preah Sihanouk over allegations of cryptocurrency dealing, illegal gambling and other related crimes.
Cambodia.- The provincial gendarmerie has raided a hotel in Preah Sihanouk province. Officers arrested 15 Chinese citizens. All but one were found to lack passports and were using false names.
According to Khmer Times, Wu Jianmin, Chinese Ministry of Public Security Task Force Chief, said: “It is … a good first step to show commitment and intent by the local authorities to crackdown on these severe series of criminal activities.”
Officers said the arrests were made for illegal gambling activities, cryptocurrency gambling and scamming, phishing and cross-territory trafficking of people, among other crimes.
The China-Cambodia Law Enforcement Cooperation Office said: “Chinese police and Cambodian police are looking for a way to resolve the problem.
“It is every police officer’s responsibility to crack down on crimes of this nature which are particularly horrific. Our government has a very strict policy to crack down on such crimes. It is a key task for our police to stop this from occurring and we are cooperating with police internationally.”
China: 46,575 prosecuted for gambling-related crimes in H1
Chinese authorities have reported an increase in prosecutions for gambling-related crimes in the first half of the year, mainly related to casinos in Macau. They said that 86.3 per cent of the prosecutions were for the “establishment of casinos”.
They said 46,575 people were prosecuted, up 27.7 per cent when compared with the same period of 2019. In the whole of 2020, 80,537 people were prosecuted for gambling-related crimes, but the number was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate said: “Gambling-related crimes have become increasingly Internet-based and developed in virtual formats. Internet-based gambling has been gradually replacing traditional, brick-and-mortar casinos in becoming a main format of crimes.”
