After an operation that has taken five months and which was coordinated by Interpol targeting illegal soccer gambling said to be controlled through organized criminal organizations, in access of 400 people have been arrested throughout Asia. This was announced this week by the international law enforcement agency Interpol.

A total of 272 clandestine gambling operations were closed by police officers across the region, which they had identified as being illegal. They were estimated at having handled in access of US $680 million worth of illicit bets internationally.

The executive director of police services for Interpol, Jean-Michel Louboutin, says that the results of the raids significantly demonstrate the affect that national law enforcement can exhibit on organized criminals in their own countries when the political coordinate their efforts through Interpol’s global network and partake of its resources.

The code name of the Interpol police operation was SOGA. This is short for soccer gambling. SOGA began in June of 2007 when there was a meeting between enforcement officers from southeast Asia’s Interpol National Central Bureaus in combination with other law enforcement agencies throughout China (including Hong Kong and Macao), Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The meeting was carried out as an intelligence exchange and was held at Interpol's Bangkok liaison office.

There was an additional meeting that took place at Dongguan, China in August. This meeting included an officers’ training workshop for those enforcement officers that were to be included in the operation. At the meeting it was agreed that each of the several regions would begin their operations at the opening of the football season.

The results of this operation were to seriously affect the organized crime activities throughout Asia, but to also serve as an superb test of national, regional and international police co-operation before the 2008 Olympic Games, according to Louboutin.

This operate was carried out during October and November this year, and is the first operation to combat illegal soccer gambling that is coordinated. It resulted in a total of 423 arrests along with the capture of more than US$ 680,000 in cash along with assets that included mobile phones, computers, bank cards, as well as cars.

Specialists both at the Liaison Office in Bangkok and at the General Secretariat in Lyon, at Interpol's Criminal Analysis units, will now examine the results of the operation in order to establish if there are any recognized or potential links with other international criminals or with international organized crime groups.

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