Chinese, Filipino operators of illegal online gambling hubs busted

COTABATO CITY. Philippines — State operatives clamped down on around 200 individuals, among them Chinese nationals, in a crackdown against illegal online gambling hubs in the neighboring Alicia and Siay towns in Zamboanga Sibugay province before dawn Friday, October 2.

The operations were carried out together by the National Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Immigration, the 102nd Brigade of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division and the Police Regional Office 9, premised on reports by vigilant local officials and residents in Alicia and Siay about the presence in both towns of foreigners and their Filipino accomplices operating clandestine online gambling networks using sophisticated electronic facilities.

Lt. Gen. Donald Gumiran, commanding general of the Philippine Army, and Major Gen. Yegor Rey Barroquillo Jr. of the 1st Infantry Division had separately confirmed to reporters the detention of the online gambling facilitators, whose hubs in Zamboanga Sibugay were raided at dawn Friday by NBI and immigration agents, soldiers and policemen.

Barroquillo, in a report to Gumiran and his superiors in the Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga City, said the NBI and immigration agents had confiscated no fewer than 200 mobile photos and dozens of laptops and desktop computers found in the hideouts of the now-detained online gambling operators.

Talks and text messages are spreading since early Friday, hinting that the arrested online gambling operators could also be involved in human trafficking and, possibly the circulation of shabu through contacts in Zamboanga Sibugay and nearby cities and provinces in Region 9 and in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Radio reports on Friday morning stated that the NBI and BI operation in  Alicia and Siay, assisted by the 1st ID and units of PRO 9, was premised on reports by local executives and confidential informants about the presence of online gambling hubs in both towns being operated by Chinese nationals and their Filipino cohorts.