Record online gambling case starts

By Yang Lifei and Li Xinran  |   2008-6-12  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

TWENTY suspects in what is believed to be the country's biggest online gambling case went on trial yesterday in Kunming, Yunnan Province, the Kunming Daily reported.

Prosecutors at the Kunming Intermediate People's Court told judges that the case involved about 8.68 billion yuan (US$1.24 billion) in wagered money and more than 200 million yuan in illegal profits. One of the gambling Websites allegedly attracted 5,198 registered users from August 2006 to March 2007, prosecutors said.

The court said it was the country's biggest online gambling case because of the number of suspected gamblers, the wide area covered, the advanced technologies used and the amount of money involved.

Prosecutors accused those charged of operating gambling houses and seriously interfering with the social order. Two Hong Kong men allegedly set up gambling houses in Myanmar in 1999 and then started to develop an online betting network. More than 3,000 people used to work for the gambling network, the report said.

Defendant Kang Zhenglong, a former official with the Ruili branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, allegedly opened several hundred bank accounts for the gambling group.

The trial continues today.