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Jakarta Post

Police arrest agents of gambling website

The Jakarta Police criminal unit has arrested two Indonesian agents of international online soccer gambling site sbobet

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Thu, February 6, 2014

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Police arrest agents of gambling website

T

he Jakarta Police criminal unit has arrested two Indonesian agents of international online soccer gambling site sbobet.com, identified only as IRW and DMF, who reportedly made profits of up to Rp 8 billion (US$656,000) a month.

The police said in a press statement on Wednesday that DMF, who was also an agent for another betting site bet-ibc.com, was arrested on Monday on Jl. Angsana Dalam, Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta, while IRW was arrested on Jan. 6 on Jl. Setia Jaya, Jelambar, also in West Jakarta.

Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto told reporters that both had been operating as agents for two to three years.

They could face a minimum sentence of five years in prison under Article 303 of the Criminal Code, he said.

Investigator Comr. Budi Hermanto said that the two operated three to four rounds of gambling a week, raking in profits of between Rp 200 million and Rp 500 million in each round.

They bet mostly on the matches in major European leagues like the English Premier League.

They retained only 30 percent of the profits because they had to pass on the rest to the website'€™s administrator and cashier, he said.

The Jakarta Police said that one of the masterminds of the gambling ring was likely to reside in Cambodia. Agents like IRW and DMF were tasked with recruiting gamblers using another site agent.sbobetonline.com.

Budi said that the website members resided in various towns throughout the country, including Jakarta and towns in Central and East Java, and that their bets ranged from Rp 50,000 to
Rp 20 million.

He said that online gambling practices were difficult criminal acts to deal with because the police had problems in tracking down the perpetrators.

'€œSince 2013, the city police have legally processed only 22 cases of online gambling,'€ he said.

However, he added that the city police had thus far identified the operations of around 200 agents of online-gambling sites.

Budi acknowledged that to overcome this problem, the police needed to cooperate with other parties, including the Communications and Information Ministry.

Given that online gambling was likely to become more rampant with the upcoming World Cup in June, the Jakarta Police was considering asking the ministry to shut down soccer gambling websites, he said.

'€œThe networking of online gamblers is like that of drug dealers,'€ Budi said.

'€œThe top level bosses are not directly connected to the networks.'€ (ask)

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