MALAYSIAN POLICE TO INTENSIFY OPERATIONS AGAINST SOCCER BOOKIES

KUALA LUMPUR,Malaysia - Police will intensify operations against illegal football betting as the World Cup enters its second round, Bukit Aman CID chief Datuk Seri Bakri Zinin said.
He said police would increase surveillance, enhance intelligence and carry out more raids nationwide to combat the activity.
"If not for the shortage of manpower, we would have been able to arrest more members of these gambling ring," he said.

• The World Cup 2010, which kicked off on June 11, now enters the knock-out round before culminating into the final on July 11.
• Bakri said police had turned the heat on football bookies following intense operations, forcing some of them to flee the country to escape the dragnet. Some of those involved in the activities were personalities with a "Datuk" title, he said.
• Bakri warned the bookies that there would not be any safe refuge for them abroad as the Malaysian authorities, in collaboration with international enforcement agencies such as the Interpol, would smoke them out of their hideout.
• "We have identified them and know where they are. We will continue to hunt them with the help of the Interpol and international intelligence network," he told Bernama.
• He said that since June 11, police carried out 156 raids of which 90 of them netted 120 members of football betting syndicates and gamblers aged between 15 and 73 years.
• Most of the raids were in Penang, Johor, Selangor and Melaka. He said that in Selangor alone, police crippled 13 syndicates, seized nearly RM5mil in bets and arrested 21 people including a woman.

Bakri reminded the public not to be easily influenced by these bookies because those who placed bets would also be hauled up.
He added that gambling would only lead to other social ills such as involvement in crimes and becoming victims to illegal money lenders.

Source: mStar, Bernama