KUALA LUMPUR : With the ongoing UEFA Euro 2020 football tournament, bookies here have been busy taking bets worth millions from punters.
To clamp down on the illegal activity, police launched an operation codenamed “Ops Soga VIII” two weeks ago and have netted 152 bookies and punters.
Sniffing out and nabbing the culprits has also become an arduous task for the police as most of the betting syndicates have taken their bookmaking activities to cyberspace to evade being traced by the authorities.
Federal police CID director Commissioner Datuk Seri Abd Jalil Hassan said today that the arrests were made between June 10 and Monday in 107 raids carried out nationwide under the operation.
He said although only RM115,132 was recovered in the raids, investigations on the betting records kept by the syndicates showed that almost RM11.7 million had changed hands in the period.
Abd Jalil said betting slips, computers and betting records were among the many items seized during the raids.
“It is still early to say if the operation is a success as the tournament will run for another 20 days. It’s a different experience this time as the syndicates are mainly taking bets online due to the movement control order (MCO) and to avoid being traced by police,“ he said
Abd Jali said the CID in all states will double their efforts in tracking down the illegal betting activities. He urged those with information on such activities to channel information to the police.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, last year’s UEFA Euro 2020 was moved to this year where 24 football teams from Europe will compete in 51 matches in the tournament.
