How the Philippines missed a Korean gambling racket worth US$3.8 billion

The Philippines has been grappling with a Korean gambling racket that has amassed an estimated US$3.8 billion in illicit profits over the past few years, despite the country's extensive efforts to dismantle Chinese-linked gambling operations known as Pogos. While the Chinese syndicates have been the main focus of law enforcement crackdowns, a spate of recent arrests suggests that a parallel Korean criminal enterprise continues to thrive under the radar.

The most recent arrest involved a Korean woman named Kim Young-sun, who authorities allege ran a network of 23 illegal online betting websites, generating an estimated 5.33 trillion won (US$3.8 billion) between November 2018 and the present. Her arrest, announced on Monday, provided a rare glimpse into the shadowy underworld that has persisted alongside the more sensational Chinese scandal.

For nearly a decade, Korean syndicates have been quietly expanding an analogous criminal economy in the Philippines, generating billions of dollars in revenue through rigged betting websites and other illicit activities. In August, police in Seoul unsealed a related case that involved an illegal gambling operation using child sexual abuse material to lure users to betting sites, with criminals generating an estimated 47.6 billion won in revenue.

These Korean criminal networks have managed to evade detection due to their sophisticated, long-running operations and the fact that they blend in with legitimate businesses. Experts suggest that many Korean gambling rings in the Philippines have close ties to China, often forming part of multinational operations rather than being solely Korean. This highlights the complex interplay between Chinese and Korean syndicates in the Southeast Asian gambling underworld.