Korean Illegal Online Gambling Mastermind Arrested
Anyone who has been gambling over the internet for any decent period of time is aware that there are two main types of online gambling sites. You have your legal, reputable establishments, which make up the majority of players’ preferred destinations, and then you have your illegal, underground operations, where there is no guarantee that your winnings will be paid, but you can rest assured your deposits will be accepted with vigor.
The alleged owner of one such illegal online gambling operation was arrested in Seoul, the capitol city of Korea, earlier this month.
Identified only as ‘Lim’, the 31-year-old man was caught because of one fatal flaw in his illicit scheme. He had been collecting the money and placing it into boxes. Two of these boxes, containing a whopping total of 1-Billion KRW (Korean Won), which breaks down to $895,897 USD, had been placed in a storage unit back in August, followed by a third box in September; this one filled with 100,000 KRW.
The proprietor of the storage unit facility became suspicious of the boxes, reporting them to police as possibly containing explosives. When police arrived and open the unit, they began looking into the origins of the excessive cash boxes.
An investigation was opened on February 9, 2011. Surveillance videos at the storage facility affirmed the identity of Lim. Police said that they believe Lim had been using an illegal online gambling operation between October of 2008 and April of 2009.
The suspect allegedly used a combination of false identity and resident registration number, along with three phony cell phone numbers, when depositing the boxes into the storage unit.
Just two days before the boxes were discovered, Lim left the country for Indonesia. He was arrested by authorities when he arrived back in South Korea on Monday at Incheon International Airport in Seoul.
The question of whether the suspect will be arraigned and punished for his alleged crimes is a fairly simple one. For the countless victims who trusted their funds to the unsavory online gambling site, the question of whether they will ever see their money returned is even easier to answer; extremely unlikely.