Enforcement action in has led to 252 arrests as part of crackdown on illegal money exchanges in Macau casinos.
Joint efforts by authorities on mainland China and Macau identified 19 suspected criminal syndicates involved in illicit currency exchange, local media reports.
It is claimed that members of the suspected criminal syndicates received instructions remotely from leaders and recruited clients to exchange currency in Macau casinos or hotels.
Arrests over illicit activity related to gambling in Asia are not restricted to Macau.
Earlier this month, South Korean authorities made ten arrests as officials thwarted an illegal gambling ring based in Cambodia.
Seven of the men, including the ringleader who has only been identified as ‘A’, have been charged with violating South Korea’s National Sport Promotion Act.
The men are alleged to have run an illegal gambling site from February 2022 and July 2023, processing transactions totalling KRW44bn (£23.4bn).
Online gaming remains illegal in South Korea, however, it is reported the site in question had over 11,000 users. Authorities seized KRW270m (£143,437) during the raid, and froze KRW120m (£63,749) in assets.
Meanwhile, a casino scandal centred around embezzled flood project funds in the Philippines has brought an inquiry into the future of the country’s iGaming market to a screeching halt.
A group of five contractors from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) have been accused of incurring gambling losses of more than Php 950m (£12.3m) at 13 casinos.
Transaction data obtained from PAGCOR, the Philippines’ gaming regulator, shows the men cashing in large sums of money in casino chips before reversing the transactions between 2023 to 2025.
These revelations form part of wider inquiries into 15 companies that were awarded P100bn (£1.3bn) in flood control projects.
It is claimed that a large proportion of the funding for these ‘ghost flood projects’ was pocketed by contractors, government officials and insiders at the DPWH.
As a result of the scandal, the Philippine Senate was rocked by a leadership shake-up, leading to the cancellation of a hearing that was scheduled on the future of online gaming in the Philippines.
