2010-06-24 14:35

BEIJING - Beijing police have detained more than 100 people in the crackdown of a gambling syndicate that operated a nationwide online gambling network.

Beijing police said Thursday nine of them would face charges.

Police said the gang had members working in 21 Chinese provinces and municipalities. It set up a system allowing mainland Internet users access to an overseas gambling portal so they could access real-time casino games such as Baccarat and roulette through online video.

In Beijing alone, the gang's web system had recorded 52,000 bets involving 2.1 billion yuan (US$ 308 million) so far this year.

Chinese police have tightened the crackdown on online gambling.

In a separate case, police in the northeast Liaoning Province said earlier this week that they have cracked the largest online gambling case in the province, which organized soccer betting ahead of the World Cup.

Police have arrested 48 members of the gang, and found it had netted over 100 million yuan between November 2009 and March 2010.

Police said the gang used overseas Internet portals allowing users to place soccer bets. The gang's members used aliases, and did not know each other's real identities.