Online gambling kingpin back in China

Escorted through the Guangdong airport by two burly plain clothes Chinese police officers, the fugitive Chinese online gambling chief Wang Bo has arrived back in China after being deported by the Philippines Secretary for Justice last Thursday (see previous reports).

Chinese media report that Wang Bo is suspected of involvement in a series of large transnational network gambling cases, including the Sky Asia online gambling network.

Our readers may recall that Wang Bo has reportedly spent large amounts of money trying to stay in the Philippines, where he was detained on the request of Chinese diplomats seeking his extradition.

In the process he triggered a corruption enquiry involving at least two senior Bureau of Immigration officials and several politicians.

All that came to an end last week when the Philippines Secretary for Justice signed a summary deportation order and handed Wang Bo over to Chinese officials.

The Chinese media reports indicate that in February 2015, Heilongjiang police received reports that a large group of people in local communities were involved in an online gambling activity named “Big Fortune 888”.

After a preliminary investigation, police found that “Big Fortune 888” was accessible at over 30 websites, such as “Sky Asia,” which itself has a cash flow of “hundreds of billions” of yuan.

Through examining bank cards used at the websites and following the money trail, Heilongjiang police investigators found that the major “Big Fortune 888” website was established in the Philippines in 2002. The site used online payment platforms to support gambling activities and, investigators claim, money laundering.

That led to a joint task force of five police officers travelling to the Philippines on four occasions, collecting evidence and assembling a case with the support of local police in the Philippines and the Chinese Embassy to the Philippines.

The task force uncovered a number of online gambling sites targeting Chinese players, including “BET8” and “Millennium.”

About 15 companies providing payment services to “Big Fortune 888” were also shut down.

Later in February, Wang Bo, reportedly the “money man” for Sky Asia, was detained by local police at a Philippines airport; subsequently released under questionable circumstances, and then rearrested.

It was the start of his long fight to avoid extradition back to China.

He will now face charges in a Chinese court at a date still to be advised.