Police rescue 32 Chinese nationals forced to work with gambling syndicate

SERDANG: Police rescued 32 Chinese nationals, including three women, from a multimillion ringgit international gambling syndicate operating out of a bungalow on Jalan Equine 4/1, here.

The group, aged between 20 to 52, all without proper travel documents, claimed that they were lured here with promise of an office job paying around 7,000 to 8,000 yuan (RM4,270 to RM4,880).

However when they arrived here, they were forced to work in a makeshift online gambling operation centre handling bets from customers in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Two of them were even beaten and chained when they refused to work and asked to go home.

Selangor CID chief Senior Asst Comm Mohd Fadzil Ahmat said police, acting on a public tip off, broke into the four-storey-bungalow in an upscale residential area to uncover the illegal activities here.

“We came in around 4.10pm and we are looking into their stories and also the possible syndicate behind this,” he said when met at the scene on Thursday.

The ground floor of the bungalow was filled with computers while the upper floors were full of bunk beds and laundry.

“They probably used this house as it is secluded and big enough to accommodate a large number of people,” he said.

Police also seized ATM cards from China based banks, routers and computers.

“Our initial findings show that they have been active for over a month. In just the month of November alone, they have collected RM15mil in bets,” he said.