SINGAPORE (AP) — A man who made millions providing illegal online gambling services to gamblers in China is among others who avoided arrest in Singapore during the Aug. 15 anti-money laundering campaign.
Wang Bingang formed his band in 2012, when he was only 23 years old. In just two years, the young man from Anxi, Fujian, started making millions running the Hongli International betting site in the Philippines and Cambodia. Hongli means “big profits” in Mandarin.
Wang, now 34, was living in a stylish bungalow on Rochalie Drive in Tanglin, which he was renting with Wang Liyun, believed to be his wife, when Singapore police arrested 10 foreigners.
His circle of relatives and his assistant continue to live at this address.
When the Straits Times (ST) visited the bungalow last Thursday (September 21), the steel door of the two-story space opened wide, revealing two Toyota Alphard and a Rolls-Royce in the front yard.
Their maid, who has been running for the family for a year, insisted the couple was in Singapore but were not home at the time. But others said the two men, who hosted house parties every month or then, hadn’t been noticed in about a month.
Checks showed that in 2022, Wang Bingang enrolled at the Sentosa Golf Club, where foreigners have to pay around $950,000 to a member.
A Sept. 12 club report showed that he and five others connected to the Singapore investigation had been placed on a delinquent list and that he did not settle his accounts there.
It appears in business records, but Wang Liyun has interests in various businesses, in addition to a bridal shop.
The two men are on a list of 34 names that the Justice Department sent Aug. 27 to dealers in valuable metals and stones to report in case of suspicious transactions that would possibly involve money laundering. The list includes the names of the other ten people arrested. here is the operation, adding an individual believed to be a relative of Wang Bingang.
Assets seized and frozen in the money-laundering case amounted to $2. 4 billion.
During court hearings, police said one of the defendants, Wang Baosen, a 31-year-old Chinese national, cousin of a fugitive known as Subject Y.
Wang Baosen, who prosecutors say is connected to a criminal syndicate, is lately facing two money laundering charges similar to money from illegal remote gambling.
Police had confiscated or seized on warrants more than $100 million in assets in Singapore belonging to Subject Y.
ST reviewed documents and added court documents similar to Wang Bang’s conviction in China, to hint at his rise.
The reach of the Hongli Group has also been detailed in the Chinese media and through organizations such as the American Institute of Peace (USIP), a U. S. federal agency established through the U. S. Congress in 1984.
Wang Bingang created the gambling game Hongli International with two partners, adding Wang Cailin, 25, from Anxi.
They were among the first overseas gambling operators in the Philippines, known colloquially as Pogos, to identify a gambling company in the country. Like the others, they targeted players across China, where gambling is illegal.
The flashy site featured games like blackjack and baccarat, as well as sports betting and esports services. Players can also be promoters and earn a commission by inviting other players to the platform.
The company made a profit temporarily, but the Philippine government began cracking down on online gambling businesses amid reports of violent criminal activity, adding kidnappings and murders.
In 2014, Wang Bingang moved his operations to Bavet in Cambodia and recruited a guy named Wang Xiaolong for the company. Wang Baosen was also implicated, according to media reports.
Hongli was a well-oiled machine, staffed with graphic designers, visitor service staff, and money control personnel. It grew and temporarily became Bavet’s largest gambling site, on the border with Vietnam.
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While Beijing has put the fight against corruption at the center of its concerns, the Chinese government has begun cracking down on gambling activities. In July 2014, a consumer from Hongli went to a police station in Ma’anshan City, Anhui Province, after going bankrupt.
This set off a chain of events that led to Wang Bingang’s arrest, according to an article on the official WeChat page of the People’s Procuratorate in Tongshan District, Xuzhou City.
The article is based on a 2015 documentary about the Hongli case made through Chinese broadcaster CCTV. Lately, the documentary is not available on the station’s website.
According to the report, police investigated the indexed bank accounts on which they won bets and examined knowledge of the transactions to arrest the promoters of the transactions. Through follow-up interviews, they met Wang Cailin.
She was on a trip from Cambodia to Xiamen, China, to introduce her pregnant friend to her parents when police arrested him on November 26, 2014. He kept a low profile at first, but eventually revealed the identity of the group’s leader, Wang Bingang. .
Wang Bingang, a Chinese citizen but Cambodian citizen, was hiding in the Tian Tian fishing port hotel in Bavet in February 2015 when police detained him. Wang Xiaolong with him.
Since online gambling was then legal in Cambodia, Chinese police were not allowed to block construction and can only wait for the elusive leader to leave.
Describing the waiting game, the article said in Mandarin: “Wang Bingang and his partner seemed to have felt the tense atmosphere outside the hotel and refused to leave, even after a month.
“As the Chinese New Year approached, (researchers) wondered: will they keep waiting or will they temporarily withdraw?Everyone was worried. “
He finally went out to eat and was arrested on February 16, 2015. He was repatriated to China on 25 February.
The Chinese police investigations lasted seven months. They froze 487 gambling accounts and found that an illicit source of income in just six months amounted to 984 million yuan (S$1. 84 billion).
The key players, including Wang Cailin and Wang Baosen, earned a monthly salary of 10,000 yuan as well as a percentage of the site’s profits, according to court documents from the Ma’anshan City District Court where the case was heard.
Wang Bingang pocketed a total of two million yuan with this plan.
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Prosecutors said that to evade the law, the suspects used other mobile phones for work and private lives, used other online accounts and replaced the Skype username they used to speak and give orders.
In court, Bangang’s lawyer said his consumer was not considered the leader of a criminal organization.
The court said Hongli may not be considered a “criminal organization” because it is unstructured, and Bingang may not be charged as a leader but only as the main culprit of a crime.
On 26 August 2015, he and five of his affiliates were found guilty. They were sentenced to terms ranging from 10 months to 3 years and fines ranging from 50,000 to 3 million yuan.
Wang Bingang sentenced to 3 years in prison, which will end on February 15, 2018. Wang Baosen has been investigated in connection with the case, but there is no data on his trial or conviction.
Despite the crackdown eight years ago, it turns out that Hongli International still operates.
Jason Tower, national director of the Myanmar program at USIP, said Hongli has been a family member in illegal gambling for the past several years.
He added that he still has active online gaming platforms available and social media links.
“You can locate many online gambling links returning to Hongli. . . they come and go, they seem to be deleted or Internet sites disappear very quickly, but a new one will appear,” M said. Tower, who has more than 20 years of experience in conflicts in Southeast Asia.
ST checks revealed that the site’s call appeared in at least 15 X (formerly Twitter) posts between 2016 and 2022. These posts involve addresses of Internet sites connected to gambling sites with other calls.
The Hongli gang is not the only foreign union linked to the investigations in Singapore. Police are also investigating the link between some of the other ten people arrested here and the Heng Bo Bao Wang group.
One of those arrested here, Vang Shuiming, 42, is believed to be a known union associate. Vang lately faces one counterfeit rate and four cash laundering fees in Singapore.
Police said the Turkish national, known as Wang Shuiming, contacted suspect X, who is no longer in Singapore, about illegal activities.
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Police did not identify suspect X but said they were looking for him as part of the ongoing investigation and in China for online gambling activities.
The Heng Bo Bao Wang gambling syndicate was dismantled in May 2022, in an operation in which Shandong police arrested another 131 people and seized more than 10 million yuan (S$1. 87 million) in assets.
The group, which was based in Cambodia, had developed and maintained several online casinos and provided the games of chance directly or rented them to others to operate.
Vang’s brother, Wang Shuiting, is one of the members of the Heng Bo Bao Wang gang fleeing Chinese authorities. The brothers have Cambodian nationality.
In an Aug. 15 notice, Chinese police suggested the other nine people return to the country, saying that if they did so voluntarily before Oct. 10, 2023, they could take advantage of the pardon.
Other wanted ones come with Vang, who Singapore police say is strongly related to two of the ten defendants, Su Haijin and Su Baolin.
Online gambling in China has seen a staggering expansion amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2021, China’s Ministry of Public Security said police had investigated more than 17,000 cross-border gambling and arrested more than 80,000 suspects for involving more than a trillion yuan in illegal transactions.
It also destroyed more than 2,200 online gambling platforms, 1,600 illegal payment platforms and underground banks, as well as 1,500 gambling promotion platforms in the same year.
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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission is required for reproduction.