South Koreans Who Ran $61M Illegal Gambling Service Get Prison Time

The Suwon District Court has found several people guilty of running a sprawling online gambling website that operated illegally and accepted wagers for various sports events.

The black-market website was pinned at $61 million in value by prosecutors, and several people were arrested, charged, and tried as a result.

South Koreans to Serve Jail Time over Large-Scale Betting Site

However, the names of the guilty parties were not released to the public, as is the custom in South Korea. Regardless, the rest of the details surrounding the case are well-known and covered.

One of the people involved in running the website was handed a six-month prison sentence and ordered to forfeit 200 million won, around $140,000.

Apart from the person who was singled out as the mastermind behind the enterprise, four accomplices were tried and handed out sentences ranging from one year to two years and two months.

In a statement, the court explained that the guilty parties had posed a significant risk to society through the operations of the gambling site and that criminal proceedings and punishments were inevitable in the end.

“Considering that they either directly established the gambling site or were deeply involved in its operation from the beginning and gained substantial criminal proceeds, severe punishment is inevitable,” a local media outlet cited a translated statement.

Investigators have found out that the main gambling site had several offshoots, but it is not clear if those were, in fact, mirror brands and domains to circumvent local restrictions in specific geo restrictions or separate projects.

South Koreans Frequently Get in Trouble Running Illegal Gambling

The operation involved a large number of people, with different members handling different aspects of the venture, including the transferring of the website’s winnings into cash and obfuscating the origin of the money.

South Korea has been a place from where a lot of news about illegal gambling operations have been coming. Because the country prohibits internet gambling in most of its forms, this has created a demand for secondary, black markets.

This is not necessarily the only instance of bad gambling practices. In February, former South Korea casino employees were brought on charges for having defrauded foreign customers on at least several occasions, acting as a part of a well-organized criminal network.