The arrests were made throughout the first half of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The Philippines.- Police in the Philippines’ Western Visayas region have reported\u00a0the arrest of 2,591 <\/strong>people for alleged illegal gambling in the first half of this year.\u00a0The arrests were made as part of the intensified anti-gambling campaign led by the Police Regional Office (PRO)-6. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Acting director Police Brig. Gen. Sidney Villaflor told the Manila Bulletin the arrests were a result of 814 anti-gambling operations conducted from January 1 to June 25, following the directive of Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Police Gen. Benjamin Acorda Jr.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the operations, approximately\u00a0PHP600,000 in suspected betting money was seized. Villaflor stressed the implementation of the strict\u00a0one-strike policy for police chiefs responsible for curbing illegal gambling<\/a>, warning that any failure would result in the immediate removal of officers.\u00a0He commended residents for providing information to the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\u00a0Philippine National Police\u00a0<\/strong>has reported that in the first half of the year, it arrested\u00a0more than 41,000 people in 50,000 operations<\/a>.<\/strong> The operations had a particular emphasis on illicit online cockfighting, known as e-Sabong. The Philippines had licensed this activity, but legal e-sabong was\u00a0terminated in May 2022<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) <\/strong>announced that the Philippines will remain on its \u201cgrey list\u201d of untrustworthy jurisdictions following the organisation\u2019s latest plenary meeting. It said the Philippines must continue implementing its action plan <\/strong>to address strategic deficiencies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the highlighted recommendations focuses on the Philippines demonstrating effective use of AML and CFT controls to mitigate risks associated with casino junkets. The FATF emphasised the urgency for the Philippines to implement its action plan promptly as deadlines for addressing strategic deficiencies expired in January 2023. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The arrests were made throughout the first half of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":17179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Philippine authorities reported 2,591 arrests for illegal gambling in Western Visayas during H1 2023, seizing PHP600,000, as part of an intensified anti-gambling campaign targeting illicit activities like e-Sabong. Concurrently, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) confirmed the Philippines' continued presence on its grey list, citing unaddressed strategic deficiencies in AML\/CFT controls, particularly concerning casino junkets, with deadlines having expired in January 2023.","focusai_entities":"Police Regional Office (PRO)-6, Sidney Villaflor, Philippine National Police (PNP), Benjamin Acorda Jr., Financial Action Task Force (FATF)","focusai_location":"Philippines, Western Visayas, Manila","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.8), payments_fraud_aml (1.0), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"FATF Grey List Impact","query":"What specific measures are Philippine authorities implementing to address the FATF's strategic deficiencies, particularly concerning AML\/CFT controls for casino junkets, given the expired deadlines?"},{"label":"Illegal Gambling Enforcement","query":"How will the intensified anti-gambling campaign and the \"one-strike policy\" impact the prevalence of illicit gaming verticals, such as e-Sabong, and what are the projected effects on the regulated iGaming market's GGR?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[439,16333],"tags":[20326],"class_list":["post-777006671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-illegal-gambling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777006671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777006671"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777006671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777006678,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777006671\/revisions\/777006678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777006671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777006671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777006671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}