Koreans arrested for online gambling in Philippines
News on 12 Jul 2014
News on 12 Jul 2014
Philippines police in Angeles City have reported taking down a Korean online gambling operation in a city suburb, arresting four Koreans and seizing 8 computers and documentary evidence.
Armed with a search warrant from a regional trial judge, the police raiding party moved on a private house the Koreans were renting in a subdivision at Barangay San Jose, where they arrested Cho Rae Man (41), Son Kwang Hyun (32), Kim Jong Hoon (33) and An Tae Young (34) on illegal online gambling charges.
Local females working in the house told police they were not aware they were doing anything illegal, and that they were employed to send out promotional emails enticing gamblers to visit a Korean online gambling website.
However, there are legal complications which could render the arrests unlawful, according to local media reports, which point out that in 2012 the Philippines Court of Appeals ruled that online gambling is not punishable under Philippine law because no penalty was set for it.
Following a Department of Justice action against an allegedly illegal online gambling enterprise in 2006 a long-running legal dispute ensued which culminated in the directors of the enterprise being indicted by Justice officials three years later.
Two years after that the Court of Appeals ruled that gambling on the Internet was not punishable under existing Philippine antigambling laws, and that the Department of Justice had gravely abused its discretion.
The court noted that existing laws did not specify online gambling as an illegal act, and that despite several amendments, there was still no penalty prescribed for online gambling offences, concluding:
“Well settled is the principle that ‘there is no crime when there is no law penalizing it.’”
Trying to bring order to the apparent chaos, a politician representing the Anticrime and Terrorism Community through Involvement and Support has filed House Bill No. 4540, or the Internet Gambling Regulatory Act of 2014, which is currently pending in the House committee on games and amusements.
