Nepal police arrest six men for helping unlawful betting in Kathmandu. On a gloomy note to unlawful internet betting companies, the Nepali authorities have arrested six men in Kathmandu for helping unlawful betting. The games and money seized by the Nepal Police’s CIB amounted to roughly Rs 240 million (US$ 1.8 million).
All the suspects are aged between 22 and 29 and from different municipalities like Kotahi Mai Municipality-6, Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City, and Kathmandu Metropolitan City-30. Police Superintendent and CIB officer Hobindra Bogati said the accused had been involved in organising online gambling with numbers of people sharing the accused’s account numbers through social media in return for their invested money through QR codes of their accounts. Most of the criminal activities were performed through the website known as Wolf777 Casino.
The arrests have been preceded by an increasing police crackdown on illegal gambling in Nepal, which has been on the rise in the wake of enhanced use of the internet. It is for these reasons that authorities have a worryingly keen interest in these operations’ ability to get to the right people easily and the roles that such a loophole might play in money laundering.
The seventh and eighth suspects are to be charged under S 125 of the National Civil Code Act in regards to gambling offences. From the above discussed legal provisions, it could be concluded that all these laws offer foundation to the prosecution of the people involved in the illicit gambling in Nepal.
The crackdown is part of a regional pattern by governments across Asia to step up the fight against this illicit commerce on the internet. In Indonesia for instance where gambling is highly legalised there are special teams whose work it is to dismantle these illegal operations. The Indonesian authorities have established that many such illicit activities are connected closely with money laundering crime rings, and this has led to a more detailed focus on cracking down on the offenders.
Likewise, the Philippines has actively been pursuing many illegitimate Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) in the war on cybercrime. The network of these unlawful operators with dangerous criminogenic risks has resulted in several arrests of these criminals in the past few months.
The gambling industry of Nepal has been rapidly growing, and the government has had a really hard time curbing the technological advancement that helps online betting. Though land-based casinos are legal though strictly controlled in the country and mainly used by foreign visitors, online gambling is still illegal but regulated in the country.
The recent arrests showed to what extent actual law enforcement faces problems in tracking down and stopping such activities. Due to the combination of approval and secrecy in the distribution of betting knowledge and the involvement of transactions by means of social sites and encrypted applications in communication, it becomes somewhat complicated for enforcement agencies to track and disable unlawful activities.
Various field have mentioned that, for Nepal there is lack of explicit legislations regarding online gambling and thus may need to considering amending the existing laws again. This could include put pressure on internet service providers to provide better security, improve the cybercrime division within the police force, and possibly evaluating the legalized on-line gambling to deter ‘business’ from going to the black-markets.
The consequences of minimising legal revenues and increasing the flow of unlawful funds – such as those generated by gambling – are a problem for Nepali authorities. On one hand, the government fails to collect taxes on large amounts moving through those nontraditional channels and on the other hand the citizens become financially vulnerable. This has been evident from the case where Rs 240 million has been seized in this case alone.
While currently, the problem is rather manageable due to the limited access of the Nepalese population to the internet and smartphone devices, as soon as the country develops the necessary infrastructure and more of the population uses the internet and mobile devices, the problem of controlling online gambling will emerge. While confronting these, the government uses legislation to safeguard susceptible people from the ill consequences of gambling dependence and to stop the utilization of gambling websites for money laundering and other fraudulent monetary schemes.
The arrests in Kathmandu over the last few days are a warning signal for other similar operators and may act as a disincentive against participation. Nevertheless, no significant accomplishment can be gainsaid insofar as the given enforcement action is concerned, and the effectiveness of this measure remains in the air as to whether it has any robust implication to incapacitate the illegitimate online gambling operating in Nepal.
During the course of the investigation, law enforcement agencies are also expected to examine the possible money laundering processes connected with the activity of the Wolf777 Casino platform and come across other criminals. Given that those online gambling operations are international, inter-country cooperation is inevitable, and Nepal may have to ask for help from agencies in the region to trace such unlawful sites.
The success of Nepal’s approach to tackling illegal online gambling will, in the next few months, be determined. As the six arrested individuals stand trial, you get a chance of getting information that may be used by enforcement agencies to come up with more stringent laws regarding gambling in the country, thus coming up with a comprehensive law for the regulation of gambling in the country.