25,000 suspects captured for online gambling

BEIJING -- Chinese police cracked over 7,200 criminal cases of online gambling and detained 25,000 suspects in 2019, the Ministry of Public Security said Thursday.

The police seized and froze more than 18 billion yuan (about $2.62 billion) of gambling-related money last year, said Li Jingsheng, an official with the ministry, at a press conference.

More than 1,100 Chinese suspects involved in cross-border online gambling were handed over to Chinese police from overseas in 2019, said Li, adding that the police destroyed the networks of foreign casinos soliciting gamblers in China.

The ministry also unveiled 10 typical cases of cross-border online gambling.

In one case, police in South China's Guangdong province arrested 112 suspects and froze 112 million yuan of crime-related money after destroying a criminal gang that operated online gambling in last September.