South Korean prosecutors will try two men accused of running illegal gambling platforms after extraditing the duo from the UAE.
Both men were unnamed in the South Korean press for legal reasons. Media outlets were also ordered to blur their faces in video footage recorded upon their arrival in the country.
One man, named as suspect “A,” is accused of running a particularly lucrative site with a turnover of around $3.14 billion. The other (named as “B”) reportedly ran a site that targeted middle and high school students, earning him over $327 million.
A joint police and government task force said the extradition proved difficult due to ongoing tensions in the Middle East, reported the South Korean newspaper Munhwa Ilbo.
“We used a local airline plane with the cooperation of UAE authorities,” a task force spokesperson said. “We will continue to track down and arrest online gambling operators even if they flee overseas.”
Gambling-related crime is on the rise in South Korea. Last month, a court in the city of Cheongju jailed a gang who tied up and assaulted a family in search of betting-related funds.
South Korean Illegal Gambling Sites: Police Hunt More Suspects
Police said they had been hunting suspect A for well over a decade. He reportedly fled his home country of South Korea in 2014 and took up residence in Southeast Asia.
Officers said that A moved between the Philippines, Malaysia, and Cambodia before eventually heading to Dubai.
In 2018, the suspect reportedly set up offices in Indonesia and the UAE, using these to run the gambling site.
UAE police arrested A several months ago, but were unable to extradite him earlier for bureaucratic and logistical reasons.
The task force says suspect A also evaded over $43.1 million in taxes. It has also accused him of narcotics and prostitution-related offences.
Police also want to question him about his possible role in the death of an unnamed South Korean national in Malaysia in late 2018.
Teenage ‘Recruiters’
The task force said that suspect B used a network of teenage South Koreans as “recruiters” for his website.
The man reportedly paid teens commission fees for bringing new users to his platform. The teens, police say, posted links to the site on their social media pages.
An unnamed police official told reporters that “quite a few teenagers” placed bets on the site.
Officers think a total of 15,000 people (mostly South Koreans) used the site to gamble.
The task force said the sites were not connected and are investigating the two cases separately.
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South Korean prosecutors will try two men accused of running illegal gambling platforms after extraditing the duo from the UAE. Both men were unnamed in the South Korean press for legal reasons. Media outlets were also ordered to blur their faces in video footage recorded upon their arrival in the country. One man, named as
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