Indonesian police arrested 321 foreign nationals in Jakarta in a raid targeting what they described as a hub for illegal online gambling that authorities said catered to players outside Indonesia. Wira Satya Triputra, director of general crimes with the Indonesian National Police, said police arrested suspects “in the act” while they were carrying out activities related to online gambling during the Saturday news conference. Police described the operation as one of the country’s largest crackdowns on banned digital betting networks.
Triputra said the 321 foreign nationals were arrested at a commercial building near the city’s Chinatown area, where investigators said they found a site used to support more than 70 online gambling websites. He said investigators relied on marketing records and digital evidence collected during the raid as part of their case. Police said the detained group was made up of 228 Vietnamese and 57 Chinese, with the remainder from Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia.
Police said investigators were still tracing the organizers and financial backers behind the network. Triputra said the operation had been organized in a structured manner, with workers assigned to roles including customer service, telemarketing and financial administration. Police estimated the operation had been running for about two months, according to the director of general crimes.
Authorities said they discovered that many of the suspects entered Indonesia using short-term visitor visas and later overstayed their permits while working at the operation. Triputra said “immigration violations were uncovered in addition to suspected gambling and money-laundering offenses.” Police said they seized cash in multiple currencies, as well as computers, mobile phones, passports and other equipment they believed had been used to manage the gambling sites.
Police said they seized equipment associated with at least 75 betting platforms and estimated the network operated through multiple gambling outlets. As of Saturday, Triputra said 275 of the detained people had been formally named as suspects, while others remained under questioning. He said those charged could face up to nine years in prison under Indonesia’s criminal and immigration laws, along with a fine of 2 billion rupiah ($116,000).
Indonesia’s crackdown comes as authorities increasingly pursue transnational crime connected to online gambling and related scams. Untung Widyatmoko, secretary of Indonesia’s Interpol bureau, said similar operations have been uncovered in recent months in Surabaya, Bali and Batam and that the cases showed the need for tighter coordination among law enforcement and government agencies to combat online betting networks and related scams.
Widyatmoko said authorities have detected signs that online gambling operators previously based in Myanmar and Cambodia have relocated operations to other countries, including Indonesia, after enforcement actions elsewhere. “After enforcement measures in Cambodia, we started to see a shift toward Indonesia, and that was something we anticipated,” he said, describing how the enforcement pressure can move these networks across borders.
The raid also reflected Indonesia’s broader focus on cross-border digital schemes. In a separate immigration surveillance operation on Wednesday, police arrested about 210 foreign nationals from Vietnam, China and Myanmar who were suspected of involvement in online investment fraud activities in an apartment on Batam island, next to Singapore. Indonesia’s second-largest city, Surabaya, also announced on Friday that it arrested 44 foreigners from Japan and China for posing as police officers in a cross-border telephone and online scam ring, following the arrest of 13 Japanese men in West Java’s Bogor in March.
Online gambling remains illegal in Indonesia, a country with the world’s largest Muslim-majority population. Police said the investigation into the Jakarta raid could lead to additional arrests tied to international networks.