China: 142 suspected of organising travels to gamble at Tigre de Cristal
Authorities in China’s Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces have a group that organised trips to gamble at the Tigre de Cristal casino in Russia.
China.- Through a joint operation, police in the provinces of Heilongjiang and Jilin have dismantled a cross-border gambling operation that organised trips for Chinese citizens to gamble at Tigre de Cristal, located in the Primorye Gambling Zone in Russia. Some 142 suspects were identified and 75 prosecuted.
According to press statements from the public security departments of the two provinces, among the 75 suspects, there were casino agents, employees and travel agency managers.
The security departments said they found RMB 1.6bn (US$250m) was being used for gambling. They identified 18 shelf companies, which they said were used for capital transfers. The police investigation also identified four “underground banks” and ten travel agencies alegedly providing services to gamblers.
In June, the Cyberspace Administration of China announced four new measures to fight cross-border gambling including enhancing precision strikes on overseas gambling groups.
Chinese authorities 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”.
