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| More than 4,000 arrested over illegal
gambling on Euro 2016 |
17/07/2016 |
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 Editor |
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• £10m
seized in two operations in Asia and Europe
• Raids were part of
Interpol’s ongoing investigations
More than 4,100 people were arrested in coordinated raids across
11 different countries during Euro 2016, in the latest global police operation
mounted against illegal gambling on major football tournaments.
Nearly
4,000 raids were carried out in China, France, Greece, Italy, Malaysia,
Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam as part of Operation SOGA VI – the sixth
investigation into football gambling by Interpol, the organisation that
facilitates cross-border police work. SOGA is short for “soccer
gambling”.
A second operation, called Aces, targeted illicit
betting websites and call centre operations in Cambodia, South Korea, the
Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. |
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Interpol said that about
£10m was seized in the two operations, while the agency estimates that
during Euro 2016 nearly £500m in bets was handled by what it calls
“illegal gambling dens”.
Jim Anderson, the head of
Interpol’s anti-corruption and financial crimes unit, said: “Illegal
gambling generates massive profits for organised crime networks which are often
linked to corruption, human trafficking and money laundering.”
The
six SOGA operations have resulted in more than 12,500 arrests, the seizure of
£40m in cash and the closure of more than 3,400 operations that handled
almost £4.85bn-worth of bets, Interpol said.
Apart from the first
SOGA operation – which was announced in November 2007 – the results
of the initiative’s five other iterations have been unveiled in 2008,
2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016, immediately after a major football tournament.
After SOGA II – which was timed to coincide with the Euro 2008
championships – Interpol said: “The effect this operation has
achieved is substantial, not only in terms of breaking up illegal gambling dens
and criminal networks, but in demonstrating the impact that co-operation
through Interpol internationally can have at the national and local
levels.”
However, the fact that the operations are still being
trumpeted eight years later has caused some in the gambling industry to
question the efficacy of SOGA and suggest that the announcements are merely
part of a routine Interpol publicity campaign.
Chris Eaton, a former
senior policeman from Australia who has since worked for Interpol and the
International Centre for Sports Security in Qatar, told the Press Association:
“Interpol has been coordinating anti-sport gambling operations in Asia for
years now, always with big arrest and seizure figures of the easy-to-detect
smaller street operators.
“The big organised online gambling
operators turning over billions – often infiltrated if not controlled by
criminals in safe-haven countries like the Philippines and Malaysia –
escape this attention.
“These big international operators under
quasi-legal cover are massively vulnerable to fraud and are the source of most
of the cash that funds and inspires match-fixing. Small-scale and token police
operations look good, but tend to enhance the mega-illegal operators by cutting
out the smaller ones. In this sense it is counter-intuitive”.
“Only co-ordinated global government intervention will clean up
gambling and save sport, and Interpol would be wiser to encourage this than
play with the minor leagues of illegal gambling.” |
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