Police in China have seized Y18 billion ($2.9 billion/€2.1 billion) worth of illegal assets used across two days for gambling on different aspects of football’s 2014 Fifa World Cup.
According to various media reports, police carried out nationwide raids, smashed various internet gambling rings and arrested 108 gamblers and managers of such online gambling platforms in the process.
The illegal assets were used across July 12-13, the final two days of the World Cup, which concluded in Brazil on Sunday.
The Chinese Ministry of Public Security did not state the actual amount of money involved.
Ministry spokesperson Zhang Hongqiang said organisers of virtual dens created gambling games and hosted them on foreign servers to avoid official scrutiny and collected bets from punters around China.
Hongqiang also said that big-money gamblers were given special access to cross-betting opportunities, which involved a large number of people through ‘super membership’.
