Chinese Cops Bust World Cup Gambling Ring Hosting $1.5 Billion in Cryptocurrency Bets
- Chinese cops have shut down a World Cup gambling ring that was hosting $1.5 Billion worth of cryptocurrency for bets.
- News reports claim that it is the first major sports betting crime to take place in China.
- Six major suspects have been apprehended by the police after identifying the people behind the gambling platform on the dark web.
A gambling platform that was running in the Dark Web was shut down by the Chinese Police. The racket was hosting over $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency bets, and it is being reported as the biggest crime in China that involves digital currency. The syndicate employed over 8,000 online agents who were responsible for drawing users into the platform for commissions. With China lacking proper crypto regulations, it was easy for the syndicate to abuse the laws and incur huge profit margins. Multiple gambling rackets have been shut down during the FIFA World Cup 2018 with over 40 suspects being arrested for being part of gambling schemes with bets running up to 320 million yuan.
The police from the southern Guangdong province of China revealed the betting ring bust in an online statement on Thursday. Six major suspects have been apprehended, and five million yuan was seized from their bank accounts. The suspects also owned $10 million in cryptocurrency that includes Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum. The gambling platform was exclusive to the dark web and was untraceable by consumer search engines. The people behind the ring ran the platform for over eight months and managed to acquire over 330,000 user registrations.
Despite the Chinese government cracking down on all local crypto exchanges and ICOs due to economic instability risks in the country, Chinese citizens find means of trading or using cryptocurrency for both legal and illegal activities. Crypto trading in yuan has gone down to below 1% globally following the cryptocurrency ban. Legal authorities in China have been cracking down on crimes involving cryptocurrency lately with many citizens holding on to cryptocurrency following the nation-wide ban.
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