Vietnamese authorities are having a banner week in cracking down on illegal betting on the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Fresh off the recent Ho Chi Minh City bust of an online betting ring linked to Philippines-based M88.com, police in Thanh Hoa province have arrested 11 individuals connected to an even larger online betting ring. This ring, allegedly led by 48-year-old Duong Ba Lieu, is believed to have processed wagers worth VND 5t (US $235m) – three times the size of the Ho Chi Minh City operation – since opening for business earlier this year.
Unlike the Ho Chi Minh City operation, the two unidentified websites used to process the Thanh Hoa wagers appear to have been based locally. The sites were allegedly purchased from a woman named Tran Thi An, whom police are currently trying to locate. Lieu is accused of charging gamblers and sub-agents fees of between VND 30m-200m ($1,400 – $9,400) to gain access to the sites.
In Singapore, 15 people are under arrest after authorities broke up a betting ring believed to have handled S$880k ($708k) in World Cup wagers over the past three weeks. The bust marks the fourth such operation local cops have broken up since their World Cup crackdown began, for a total of 56 arrests made and S$2.8m in cash seized.
In Shanghai, a group of women staged a public protest over the attention their significant others are paying to the World Cup and the correlating lack of attention paid to them. According to QQ.com, a dozen women appeared flash-mob style outside a subway station, unfurling a banner identifying themselves as members of the Anti World Cup Women League. Messages written on their exposed backs listed individual grievances, including “Stop gambling! We are losing the deposit for the house!” and “Stop stealing money from my online account to gamble!”
In Beijing, one particular woman is attracting headlines for her own wagering ways. Guo Meimei, an internet celebrity/fame-whore who caused a minor kerfuffle in 2011 after falsely claiming the lavish lifestyle she bragged about via social media was due to her (non-existent) role with the China Red Cross, was arrested on Thursday after bragging about her World Cup wagering. The 23-year-old Guo was one of eight individuals clapped in irons after she made several social media posts detailing their betting on football matches via international online gambling websites. Guo has previously claimed to have ran up huge debts gambling in Macau casinos, which were subsequently paid off by one of her apparently lengthy string of sugar daddies.
