In a story that sounds like it could be out of a movie, a Chinese gang was busted running an illegal gambling ring worth nearly $15 billion.
When dealing with a country the size of China, the numbers involved dwarf anything seen in Europe or even North America. It is estimated that Chinese citizen spend something near $87 billion gambling on casino games with foreign sites. The site that was subject to the crackdown had their servers located overseas, which made tracking them down difficult, but obviously not impossible. The ring was being run by a man who called himself “Dark Brother”, who was aided by a woman known as “Old Cat”. While this may conjure up images of comic book villains, the pair was operating for years, and were very effective. It was Old Cat who first caught the attention of police in 2007, and she led them to Dark Brother. Even though police were aware, at least at some level, of their activity, they waited to make their move until the 2010 World Cup. This gave them a much bigger bust, since the gang was swollen with profits from the bets taken connected to the games. While it might seem strange for a country that wasn’t even participating in the World Cup to generate so much betting over it, with so many people and so few outlets to allow them to gamble, it would make sense that they didn’t have to look too far to find people willing to bet on just about anything.
