321 foreigners arrested in Indonesia online gambling crackdown

The foreigners, mainly from Vietnam, were arrested near Jakarta’s Chinatown section that investigators described as a hub for more than 70 online gambling websites

More than 300 foreign nationals were arrested in a raid on an alleged online gambling operation in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, police said on Saturday, in one of the country’s largest crackdowns on illegal digital betting networks.

The 321 foreigners, mainly from Vietnam, were arrested at a commercial building near the city’s Chinatown section that investigators described as a hub for more than 70 online gambling websites, targeting players outside Indonesia, based on marketing records and digital evidence collected during the raid.

Those arrested include 228 Vietnamese, 57 Chinese and the rest came from Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia, Wira Satya Triputra said, the director of general crimes with the Indonesian National Police. He said investigators were still tracing the organisers and financial backers behind the network.

“We arrested the suspects in the act while they were carrying out activities related to online gambling,” Triputra told a news conference on Saturday. He said the operation was organised in a structured manner, with workers assigned to roles such as customer service, telemarketing and financial administration. Police estimate the operation had been running for about two months.

Authorities said many gambling syndicates move their operations frequently to evade detection, often recruiting foreign workers to run websites and customer services.

Triputra said many of the suspects entered Indonesia using short-term visitor visas and overstayed their permits while working at the operation, and that “immigration violations were uncovered in addition to suspected gambling and money laundering offences.”