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Chinese Police Bust World Cup Gambling Ring With More Than $1 Billion In Cryptocurrency (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the illegal-gambling dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Chinese authorities have arrested six suspects behind a World Cup gambling ring that was hosting more than 10 billion yuan -- or $1.5 billion USD -- worth of cryptocurrency bets, according to a statement released yesterday by the police department in Guangdong province. The gambling syndicate ran on the dark web, accepting bets in the form of bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin for an eight-month stretch before being apprehended. It attracted more than 300,000 players from different countries, and 8,000 "agents" who earned commissions for recruiting new members through a pyramid scheme-like system, according to the South China Morning Post. The bust that took down the dark web syndicate was a part of China's larger plans to stem the criminal activity -- though this was the first to involve cryptocurrency, according to Guangdong law enforcement. Thus far, they've arrested 540 suspects and frozen more than 260 million yuan as a part of their efforts.

28 comments

  1. Look at this lack of an economy by shaitand · · Score: 1

    No, nobody is using cryptocurrency as money... just speculation. Granted it is still a form of gambling but this is hardly gambling on the value of the cryptocurrency which many would have you believe is the only market cryptocurrency is used for.

    1. Re:Look at this lack of an economy by Desler · · Score: 1

      No, people say it's also for shady, illegal things such as the illegal betting ring in this story.

    2. Re:Look at this lack of an economy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      illegal betting ring

      because god forbid people be allowed to play with their own money and not have to fork a shitload of it over to the government because reasons

    3. Re:Look at this lack of an economy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In places were gambling is not illegal why shouldn't they be required to pay taxes? If you win thousands in Las Vegas you can expect to be handed a tax form to fill out as you exit the establishment. Whether you fill it out is your decision but the IRS is pretty good at monitoring the legal casinos operating in the US. In the US you can even deduct some of your legal gambling losses on your tax returns.

      If your whole argument for using crypto-currencies is to avoid government taxes than you are only accelerating government efforts to officially regulate or ban the use of crypto-currencies. The government already has a strong enough case with crypto-currencies being used to finance illegal acts. Drugs, murder for hire, firearm sales, hacking, selling stolen goods, ransom payments, and blackmail are just some of the illegal acts that crypto-currencies are used for.

    4. Re:Look at this lack of an economy by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      In places were gambling is not illegal why shouldn't they be required to pay taxes? If you win thousands in Las Vegas you can expect to be handed a tax form to fill out as you exit the establishment

      Do you get a deduction form if you lose?

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      No sig today...
    5. Re:Look at this lack of an economy by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Seriously? What is shady about online sports betting? Illegal it may be but its completely harmless.

    6. Re:Look at this lack of an economy by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Not only do you not get a deduction form if you lose, you get nicked for your individual wins and no deduction for your loses in that light the odds on blackjack become very very far from even.

  2. How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    If we're talking fictional currencies, at least use ones that actually have value.

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    1. Re:How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      It says 10 billion yuan. Is the yuan fictional?

    2. Re:How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 0

      Scots don't use pounds . . . they use "stones" . . .

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      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    3. Re:How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      Was it converted to Yuan, or is this another fictional measure like "street price"?

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    4. Re:How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      It was converted to yuan.

    5. Re:How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by quantaman · · Score: 1

      It says 10 billion yuan. Is the yuan fictional?

      No but the 10 billion might be.

      It says it was hosting 10 billion "worth of cryptocurrency bets". That might mean that cryptos worth 10 billion yuan were currently in the system waiting on the outcome of the next two games. Or it could mean that the ring handled 10 billion worth of bets over the entire 8-month period.

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      I stole this Sig
    6. Re:How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      World Cup consists of little fairies in their pastel togs and jumpers prancing and skipping like Tenderloin twinks, pansies, and nancy boiz.

    7. Re:How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by Aighearach · · Score: 1, Informative

      It says 10 billion yuan. Is the yuan fictional?

      Yes. That translates to "10 billion units of cash."

      The Chinese yuan is called the renminbi. As in, 10 billion renminbi.

      American yuan is called the US dollar. As in, 1.5 billion US dollars.

      If you go to China and try to pay for lunch by bartering chickens, and the shopkeeper insists on being paid yuan, that doesn't mean he only accept renminbi; he might very happily accept dollars, or any other type of yuan that is convertible to renminbi.

    8. Re: How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Damn, and this whole time I thought it was a football competition.

    9. Re:How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      This kind of bust is really quite damaging. Hosting those bets, links of holders of crypto, gamblers, Chinese authorities are going to have a field day with all the information. This and lots of crypto which they will be able to use in sting operations and of course espionage pay offs. You can bet every single person tracked to that site and who made a bet will be flagged.

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    10. Re:How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is incorrect. -1

      The Chinese currency the renminbi. An equivalent US phrase would be dollars and cents or "cash".

      The Chinese currency is typically priced and discussed as Yuan, just as US prices are discussed as the US Dollar.

    11. Re: How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the biggest disruption to crypto to date and nobody noticed. That coin was just removed from circulation and taken by the Chinese government. This seizure alone gives them enough coin to destroy the market.

      Eth goes POS - who holds the stakes?

    12. Re:How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by skovnymfe · · Score: 1
      Why go to the effort of writing such a poor explanation when you can just quote Wikipedia?

      The yuan (/jun, -æn/; sign: ¥; Chinese: ; pinyin: yuán; [æn] (About this sound listen)) is the base unit of a number of former and present-day Chinese currencies.

      A yuan (Chinese: ; pinyin: yuán) is also known colloquially as a kuai (Chinese: ; pinyin: kuài; literally: "lump"; originally a lump of silver). One yuan is divided into 10 jiao (Chinese: ; pinyin: jio; literally: "corner") or colloquially mao (Chinese: ; pinyin: máo "feather"). One jiao is divided into 10 fen (Chinese: ; pinyin: fn; literally: "small portion").

      Today, it usually refers to the primary unit of account of the renminbi, the currency of the People's Republic of China.[1] It is also used as a synonym of that currency, especially in international contexts – the ISO 4217 standard code for renminbi is CNY, an abbreviation of "Chinese yuan". (A similar case is the use of the terms sterling to designate British currency and pound for the unit of account.)

    13. Re: How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Destroy the market? All they can do is dump coin that was already in circulation back in. It isn't removed from circulation it has merely changed hands. Unlike their own currency they print at will cryptocurrency has value in every country around the globe and it is off their books (not that this is as big a deal for the chinese as others but I'm sure there is bound to be something the chinese don't want the UN, NATO, or other nations to know).

    14. Re:How much is that in Scottish Pounds? by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Why go to the effort of writing such a poor explanation when you can just quote Wikipedia?

      Because

      • argument from authority is for idiots
      • wikipedia is a very low quality source for giving a simple, clear explanation
      • People who don't want to communicate, they just want to read wikipedia, they're not reading your words to find wikipedia, because you're not Wikipedia

      Those are the reasons I didn't. Had I considered it, I would have also rejected it in this case because their explanation is of much lower quality than what I presented, with all sorts of irrelevant words about things like subdivision of currency, and the exchange symbol is, the etymology, even colloquial synonyms. That's all besides the point; the point is that the word "yuan" tells you that the payment is currency, it doesn't tell you which currency. The specific name of Chinese currency is Renminbi. If you're trying to hand a Chinese person US dollars, and they refuse to accept it, they won't demand "yuan," which you're already trying to hand them, they'll demand Renminbi. And if you're trying to press a credit card on them, and they demand "yuan," they didn't demand Chinese currency, they only demanded some form of cash. Colloquialisms will be more casual.

      When you paste from wikipedia, you show you can operate a mouse, but you don't show that you understand anything, nor do you engage in communication. Nor have you even practiced a communication form. And often, you won't have even shown an ability to categorize information based on the current context.

  3. Define "gambling" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I find it amusing that betting on sports is illegal and yet bitcoin itself is fine and dandy...

    1. Re:Define "gambling" by Desler · · Score: 1

      In China, it's not. They've cracked down on quite a few bitcoin exchanges.

    2. Re:Define "gambling" by mysidia · · Score: 1

      China already banned exchanging Fiat/Bitcoin.

      This action is NOT about protecting people... China sees opportunity, because of many millions of $$$ of bets from all over the world, they can arrest these people, and seize this money, and this $$$ will go straight to the government and corrupt law enforcement officials.
      The people who placed these bets will not see a cent of their $$$ ever again, whether their bet wins or loses.

    3. Re:Define "gambling" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I find it amusing that betting on sports is illegal and yet bitcoin itself is fine and dandy...

      And it amuses me that the lottery is legal. Betting is okay if the government does it.

  4. This is an advertisement for cryptocurrency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Keep on pissing people off with your overreach Chinese Gov. People have alternatives now.