Poker Writer
Police in Pattaya, Thailand, took down two online gambling networks in one day after raiding rented villas and arresting 68 Indian nationals. The first raid resulted in the arrest of 43 Indian nationals, while the second one resulted in 25 arrests, all of whom were working as part of various online gambling sites.
Authorities raided a two-story villa with a swimming pool in the tourist area of Nong Prue, a suburb of the popular coastal tourism town of Pattaya. The ground floor of the villa had been converted into a large office suitable for a large number of workers. The office space had 33 computers, 50 mobile phones and 27 SIM cards, all seized by the raiding authorities.
The second villa was raided shortly after the first. It had an additional 80 items, such as laptops and mobile phones, in addition to the 25 individuals arrested.
Large Operation Led to Suspicion
The 43 Indian nationals worked in various roles across up to 23 gambling websites. These websites mainly targeted Indian customers.
Police began investigating the property about a month before the raid. The monitoring began after an undercover source reported suspicious activity with large numbers of foreign nationals in one villa. There was also a lot of food delivered to the villa throughout the day. Eventually, they had plenty of evidence for a search warrant.
The 68 Indian nationals arrested were all in Thailand on tourist visas. Authorities charged them all with working without permits. They worked in a variety of roles for the gambling sites, from marketing, accounting to customer service.
Each villa generated substantial amounts of money, over 6 million rupees each day.
Further Investigation into the Region
The Thai authorities are continuing the investigations to see how deep the connections of these two villas go. They intend to dig in order to identify any wider networks and dismantle any that exist.
Southeast Asia a whole is rife with foreign nationals working illegally. Many work in the capacity of running online sites for gambling, scams, selling counterfeit merchandise and more. Earlier in 2026, authorities in neighboring Myanmar raided the infamous ‘scam cities’ in the country. Over 300 foreign nationals were arrested in the various raids.
