72 suspects arrested, 188 gambling sites shut down in crackdown on 23 trillion won operation
Police have dismantled South Korea's largest online gambling network, which ran operations worth 23 trillion won ($17.1 billion).
The South Chungcheong Provincial Police Agency's cybercrime unit announced Monday it had arrested 72 suspects and detained 19 after breaking up the top-tier gambling site supply organization.
The suspects are accused of operating from bases in Vietnam and Cambodia between 2023 and July 2026, creating and pre-selling 188 gambling sites that generated roughly 23 trillion won in wagering activity.
Investigators found that the suspects had established so-called "vendor" companies by signing direct contracts with well-known overseas gaming firms to obtain and distribute casino video streams and game credits. Working alongside "solution" companies that built and sold gambling sites, they ran the entire operation — creating and distributing the sites while selling game credits to gamblers.
The investigation began after police arrested the operators of a gambling site in November last year and obtained leads pointing to the top-tier supply organization. Detectives conducted a detailed analysis of 795 financial accounts and overseas messaging services used in the crimes, identified the ringleaders and their associates, and arrested 21 suspects in sequence through September.
The solution organization — centered on its chief, identified only as A — divided responsibilities among members covering development, sales and site management to continuously build and sell gambling sites. Police determined the group constituted a criminal organization and applied additional charges under Article 114 of the Criminal Act, which covers the formation of criminal organizations.
By analyzing the game-credit management pages and accounts the vendor companies used to sell and distribute game credits, investigators calculated the total wagering volume during the period at approximately 23 trillion won.
The vendor companies contracted with overseas gaming suppliers for the rights to stream gambling content, purchased game credits and sold them to the solution companies. They also recruited computer specialists to develop a game-credit distribution platform — an administrator site — and sold game-credit units to the solution companies.
The network was structured as a vertically integrated pyramid designed to maximize profits as the number of lower-tier operators grew: vendor companies fed solution companies, which supplied gambling site operators, who in turn recruited gamblers through adult PC bang establishments. The organization recruited lower-tier operators through sales activities across the country to maximize its margins on game-credit distribution.
To evade law enforcement, the group split its operations between Southeast Asian offices in Vietnam and Cambodia and domestic locations, frequently relocating and using borrowed-name assets, overseas servers and foreign messaging applications.
Police said the investigation targeted the apex of the pyramid structure rather than lower-tier gambling sites, leading to the arrest of domestic suspects. Twelve suspects who fled abroad are being pursued through Interpol red notices and forced repatriation procedures.
Arresting the solution company's developers also allowed police to shut down all 188 gambling sites the group had built and sold. The 408 URLs those sites had used were blocked after police requested action from the Korea Communications Standards Commission.
Police applied for pre-indictment asset preservation orders on 6 billion won ($4.47 million) in criminal proceeds linked to solution chief A and other executives, and a court granted the request. A separate application covering 3.6 billion won in proceeds tied to the arrested vendor and solution operators is under court review. The National Tax Service has also been notified so that the proceeds can be actively recovered.
"We noted that gambling sites kept opening despite repeated crackdowns, so we focused our investigation on cutting them off at the source," a South Chungcheong Provincial Police Agency official said. "By dismantling the top-tier supply chain, we achieved the effect of starving hundreds of gambling sites out of existence. We will continue to conduct sustained enforcement operations targeting the top-tier supply chain."
kwonhl@heraldcorp.com
