中国破获了价值1.5亿美元的世界杯金字塔模式的赌博团伙 [美国媒体]

PRC busts $1.5b World Cup Bitcoin gambling pyramid scheme

中国破获了价值1.5亿美元的世界杯金字塔模式的赌博团伙



Police in south China’s Guangdong province announced this week that a suspected $1.5 billion illegal football gambling syndicate, that is said to be underpinned by a crypto-currency “pyramid marketing” scheme, has been smashed.

本周，中国南部广东省的警方宣布，一个涉嫌价值15亿美元的非法足球赌博集团已被粉碎。据称，该集团的基础是一项加密货币的“传销”计划。

Reports from Xinhua, say authorities made 540 arrests, froze assets of more than 5 million yuan and confiscated virtual currencies worth over 10 million yuan. The syndicate, that was said to involve 20 different “gangs” that recruited 330,000 members in only eight months, used 70 mobile apps and websites as well as 250 online chat groups. Recent syndicate activity was allegedly focused on World Cup matches.

新华社的报道说，有关部门逮捕了540人，冻结了500多万元的资产，没收了价值超过1000万元的虚拟货币。据称，该组织由20个不同的“团队”组成，在短短8个月内招募了33万名成员，他们使用了70个移动应用和网站，以及250个在线聊天小组。最近的财团活动据说都集中在世界杯的比赛上。

Gambling is illegal in China although officially managed “games of luck,” that are run for charity by China’s Sports Administration from a multitude of “lottery shops” across the country, are allowed. The main one of these is the National Sports Lottery and is now said to be the second biggest lottery in the world. Only the Spanish Christmas Lottery, with its staggering US$800 million “El Gordo” jackpot, is thought to be bigger.

赌博在中国是非法的，尽管官方管理的“运气游戏”(由中国体育局在全国各地的“彩票商店”中为慈善机构经营)是被允许的。其中最主要的一种是国家体育彩票，据说是世界上第二大规模的彩票。只有西班牙的圣诞彩票，被认为是更大的，其头奖是高达8亿美元的“El Gordo”。

Despite China only having ever qualified for one World Cup, in 2002 when it did not win a game, there is still huge interest in the tournament. Something like 300 million people in China tuned in to watch each of the three games in 2002 and general interest in this World Cup has also remained very high.

尽管中国只获得过一次世界杯的参赛资格，2002年的时候它还没有赢得任何一场比赛，但人们仍然对世界杯产生了浓厚的兴趣。大约有3亿中国人收看了2002年的三场比赛，人们对本届世界杯的兴趣也很高。

According to AFP, data from the China Sports Lottery Management Centre shows turnover at the official lottery shops from football-related betting in the three weeks up to July 1 was worth close to 29 billion Yuan (more than $4 billion), while in the three previous weeks – as in before the World Cup – it was less than five billion yuan.

据法新社报道,中国体育彩票管理中心的数据显示在官方彩票商店营业额从七月一日开始的三个星期足球投注价值接近290亿元(超过40亿美元),而在世界杯三周之前————这个数字不到五十亿元。

These figures of course do not reflect the billions more that are raked in by China’s vast underground gambling networks. These operations, that have long been linked to a host of football match-fixing incidentsacross the globe, are run from a myriad of Chinese-language websites that have servers based outside the PRC.

当然，这些数字并不能反映中国庞大的地下赌博网络摄取的数十亿美元。长期以来，这些动作都与全球许多足球比赛事件有关，它们都是由无数在中国境外拥有服务器的中文网站运作的。

Many of these were linked to the Cagayan freeport in the Philippines, but after the country’s tough-talking president, Rodrigo Duterte, instigated a clampdown, Cambodia and Vietnam now appear to become hubs.

其中很多都与菲律宾的卡格扬自由港(Cagayan freeport)有关，但在言辞强硬的菲律宾总统罗德里戈•杜特尔特(Rodrigo Duterte)发起打击行动后，柬埔寨和越南现在似乎成了中心。

In the recent Guangdong operation, police say they noticed in May that an online gambling platform was accepting Bitcoin, so they launched an investigation. They say they discovered a worldwide gambling platform, that had operations across the world and was accepting payments, and making payouts, in the Bitcoin, Ether and Litecoin crypto-currencies. The syndicate’s network was based on a multi-tier pyramid model that encouraged “agents” to bring in new members in return for commission payments, again paid in crypto.

在最近广东的行动中，警方表示，5月份他们注意到一个在线赌博平台正在接受比特币，因此他们展开了调查。他们说，他们发现了一个全球赌博平台，在全球范围内运作，接受比特币、以太币和莱特币的支付和付款。财团的网络基于多层金字塔模式，鼓励“代理商”引入新成员，以换取佣金，同样是通过密码支付。

Guangdong police say the action was part of the wider nationwide “Online Clean and Secure” operation that was set up to specially target illegal web-based gambling during the World Cup.

广东警方表示，这一行动是针对世界杯期间非法网络赌博而设立的全国性“网络清洁与安全”行动的一部分。