The Indonesian police is laying the smack down anew on illegal gambling rings in Indonesia after the Jakarta Globe reported the arrest of seven individuals – six women and one man – accused of running an online gambling ring.
The illegal activity was discovered by a police officer who happened to chance upon a website called Tangkasbet last September 18. With intuition in full display, the officer decided to register as a member to see if the site was offering real money bets. What the officer soon discovered was that the site not only ran illegal online wagering, but also operated by using coins that were used to gamble on a variety of games, including poker. These coins could be acquired by transferring money and could then be subsequently exchanged back to money, which would then be transferred to the bank accounts of these registered players.
According to Adjunct Senior Commissioner Winston Tommy Watuliu, who is the head of the national police’s cybercrimes division, the website had about 200 to 300 registered members and was operating on a daily turnover of 50 million rupiah, which is just north of $5,000 based on current exchange rates.
Upon the discovery of the site, local Indonesian authorities immediately traced the Internet protocol (IP) address of the website, and exactly a month later on Oct. 18, raided a house located in Batam, Riau Islands and arrested five women. From there, the sting operation continued in another house in the same Lubuk Baja subdistrict where the alleged supervisor of the online gambling ring lived in. The last of the arrests occurred after the female supervisor proceeded to rat out her male accomplice who was the bookie of the bunch at his own house in Cengkareng, Banten.
With these arrests, all seven individuals have also been charged with multiple crimes, including money laundering and violations on gambling, electronic information and transactions.
There have been multiple arrests made in Indonesia over the past few months regarding illegal online gambling. Just goes to show you that this kind of business doesn’t have the kind of long-term security compared to when you’re doing it on the up-and-up.
