Thailand police track down online gambling operators

Thai police continued their hunt for illegal online gambling operators this week, with the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) revealing that it has tracked down a series of Cambodian online gambling websites funded by two groups of investors in Thailand, and taken action against the operators.

DSI Chief Tarit Pengdit told the Bangkok Posts that the department had established clear links between the gambling websites and investors in Thailand, whose assets had been frozen.

Col Surasak Na Lampang, who headed the investigation, said the two groups operated several websites based in Cambodia so they would be difficult for Thai authorities to find. The websites provided services to Thai gamblers and had several accounts at Thai banks.

One group of investors is based in Bangkok’s western region, and operates 15 websites, Col Surasak said. They had opened 75 bank accounts in Thailand and were receiving about four million baht (around GBP 81,000) per day, or about 1.4 billion baht a year.

The websites have an average of 1,160 gamblers online each day, he added.

The second group of investors is from the Northeast region of Thailand, and operated seven websites making over 800 million baht a year.

Col Surasak said the police had frozen 103 of their bank accounts holding a total of eight million baht.

The DSI also raided three Thai houses and seized several computers and other equipment used for administering the websites.