Japan: 2 arrested for allegedly helping people gamble online

The men allegedly sent money to overseas operators for customers to place bets.

Japan.- Police in Tokyo have arrested two Japanese men suspected of acting as settlement agents for overseas operators of online casinos. It’s the first such case in Japan.

The suspects are accused of transferring funds to offshore online casino operators on behalf of 18 customers in Japan who engaged in online betting during the year ending July 2022. According to NHK, the suspected agents initiated an online payment service around 2020, sending money from Japan to three cyber casinos. Data is said to show that agents had approximately 42,000 registered customers.

The agents are alleged to have received deposits totalling hundreds of millions of dollars and to have earned commissions exceeding US$14m from the casinos.

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