The operator of an illegal gambling site that handled a total of 4.3 trillion won, who had evaded investigators for 12 years, has been arrested in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and extradited to Korea.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice on Wednesday, a whole-of-government joint task force (TF) on transnational crime extradited suspects A and B, who had been arrested in the UAE through cooperation with local authorities, the previous day. Suspect A ran a gambling site with total gambling funds of 4.8 trillion won, based in Southeast Asia. A had evaded investigators in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Cambodia since 2014, but was arrested in the UAE after 12 years. The suspects also face charges of tax evasion worth 66 billion won, along with providing and using drugs and prostitution.
Suspect B was found to have operated a gambling site with total gambling funds of 500 billion won, keeping organization members in Korea and mobilizing middle and high school students as so-called "distributors" for the illegal gambling business. A and B were not accomplices and committed their crimes separately.
The TF, which includes the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Intelligence Service, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, the National Police Agency, the Korea Customs Service, the National Tax Service, and the Financial Services Commission, tracked the suspects' whereabouts through long-term intelligence analysis and international cooperation, while collecting and analyzing data on criminal proceeds and accomplice relationships.
