Police raid online gambling network linked to massive money laundering scheme
Police raided an online gambling network accused of laundering money through shell companies in Thailand.
Officers on Wednesday smashed the UFAC4r gambling website as the network allegedly funnelled more than 2.4 billion baht through an organised money laundering scheme.
Investigators said the network operated like a corporation, with designated teams for website management, system development, and financial operations.
The gang was said to have established multiple front companies and corporate bank accounts to create legitimacy before linking their systems to popular online gateways.
This allowed gambling customers to pay through credit cards, PromptPay and e-wallets without attracting attention, as the illegal transactions were mixed with legitimate merchant payment flows, making them difficult to trace.
The cash trail allegedly moved through multiple mule accounts before Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese agents withdrew millions of baht at a time to disrupt digital tracking.
The cash was then delivered to financiers, with the network reportedly circulating an average of up to 200 million baht per month.
After gathering evidence and tracing financial transactions, officers obtained arrest warrants for nine suspects and raided two locations in Bangkok.
The first target was the office of a payment gateway company on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, where investigators discovered a large amount of digital evidence linked to illegal financial transactions.
The second location was a house, where officers arrested Hong Tam Nguyen, 34, a Vietnamese national accused of acting as the main administrator of the gambling website system and overseeing cash withdrawals.
Authorities seized evidence, including cash counting machines, a large number of bank passbooks and financial accounting documents allegedly connected to the network.
Officials said the payment gateway system may also have been used to launder money connected to hundreds of other criminal cases.
Police Major General Siriwat Deepo, Commander of Cyber Crime Investigation Division 1, said: 'We are currently reviewing 70 to 80 complaints involving bank accounts connected to this system. The suspects have initially been charged with jointly operating illegal online gambling platforms and jointly laundering money.
'We will continue expanding the probe to track down everyone behind the network. This is only the tip of the iceberg of cybercrime, and we will intensify suppression efforts to tackle these operations.'
