Taiwan: 32 charged over online gambling site
32 people including a Taiwanese billionaire have been charged with running an online gambling platform and engaging in money laundering.
Taiwan.- Prosecutors in Taichung have charged 32 people for allegedly operating an illegal online gambling platform worth more than NT$59.4bn (US$2.13bn).
Among them was Chuang Chou-wen, chairman of Taichung-based Xinliwang International Holdings Company, who has been under arrest since November 2020. The other 31 people charged were his employees.
The Taichung District Prosecutors Office charged all 32 with gambling, engaging in organised criminal activity, and tax evasion.
Investigators allege that Chuang was behind a group called Xinliwang that owned 12 companies that had been operating an online gambling platform called GPK Bet since 2014.
They said that GPK Bet involved 532 online gambling sites and 54 online gambling system providers.
Authorities said Chuang and his company earned an illicit profit of more than NT$59.4bn and evaded taxes of around NT$266m.
Incoming and outgoing funds were handled in part through 843 dummy accounts in China, which has strict rules against gambling.
