South Korea police arrest 77 over $17.2bn illegal gambling network

South Korean police have taken 77 suspects into custody in connection with an online gambling operation that allegedly ran 188 casino sites, the Chungnam Provincial Police Agency said on 19 October. The agency reported that 21 of those taken into custody were held in detention. According to the agency, no previous illegal gambling probe in the country had reached the scale of this one.

Detectives claim the operation ran from March 2023 through July 2026, with offices in South Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia from which casino sites were provided to smaller operators. Over that three-year span, bettors are thought to have wagered 23 trillion won, or about $17.2 billion, through the network, a sum reflecting total betting activity and not the group's profits. The two main supply groups are alleged to have produced 150 billion won, roughly $112 million, in criminal proceeds. Casino feed suppliers are believed to have taken in 120 billion won ($90.4 million), and website developers reportedly got about 30 billion won ($22.6 million).

Police say the operation depended on software engineers recruited from major South Korean companies, who created a tool capable of turning out a casino site in about 10 minutes. Contracts with gambling operators abroad allegedly gave the network access to casino video feeds and virtual gaming credits, which developers used to build ready-made gambling sites for smaller operators. A monthly maintenance charge of 3 million won ($2,250) applied to each site. Adult-only internet café owners across South Korea helped bring in new customers and made money by selling gambling credits.

Officers made their first arrests of a handful of lower-level operators in November 2025, which set the inquiry in motion and led authorities to trace money and communications upward through the supply chain. Transactions across 795 financial accounts were examined, along with messages sent via overseas messaging services. According to police, the suspects shifted their offices repeatedly between South Korea and Southeast Asia and used foreign servers to frustrate tracing efforts.

Police said 25 of the 77 people apprehended were tied to the supply operation, 33 ran gambling websites and 19 were classified as gamblers. Organized crime charges have also been brought against 24 people linked to the website-development business. All 188 gambling sites have been closed and 408 related web addresses blocked, according to authorities, who also obtained a pre-indictment freeze on 9.6 billion won, about $7.2 million, in suspected criminal proceeds.

The provincial police agency said its investigators had concentrated on severing the supply of gambling websites at the source, having concluded that new sites kept appearing even after repeated crackdowns. The agency added that it would continue its enforcement work, building on the takedown of the overseas gambling websites. Interpol red notices are being sought for 12 suspects thought to have left the country.

In a separate case at the end of July, authorities broke up a gambling enterprise that allegedly took in $230 million in wagers and exploited people with hearing impairment, treating them as "mules" to facilitate gambling transactions.