Asian cops arrest soccer gamblers

Police across Asia have arrested more than 1,300 people and seized $16.5 million in a major swoop on illegal football gambling networks, Interpol says.

In May and June, police raided 1,088 illegal gambling dens across the region, many controlled by organized crime gangs, according to a statement from Interpol.

Located across China, including Hong Kong, Macao, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, the dens are jointly estimated to have handled some $1.5 billion worth of bets, it said.

Codenamed Operation SOGA II — short for soccer gambling — the crackdown was timed to coincide with the Euro 2008 football championships and the finals of other football league matches around the world, Interpol said.

"The effect this operation has achieved is substantial," the international police agency’s director of police services, Jean-Michel Louboutin, said.

Louboutin added that the operation, the second of its kind, "forms an excellent base for collective security efforts during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics."