Online Gambling Syndicate in Hayam Wuruk Used Servers in Brazil and Vietnam to Evade Blocks

The Directorate of General Crimes (Dittipidum) of the Indonesian National Police’s Criminal Investigation Agency (Bareskrim) has uncovered that an online gambling syndicate operating from the Hayam Wuruk Plaza Tower in West Jakarta utilised servers located overseas. The move is suspected to have been a tactic to avoid blocking by the Indonesian government. “A total of 145 gambling websites, domains, or sites were found to be managed by the suspects on a rotating basis. Why rotating? Because this was intended to avoid blocking by the Ministry of Communication and Digital,” said Brigadier General Wira Satya Triputra, Director of General Crimes at Bareskrim, during a press conference in South Jakarta on Friday (26/6/2026). Based on digital forensic analysis, Wira stated that the IP addresses and hosting for the hundreds of sites were spread across several countries, from Brazil to Vietnam. “Information was obtained that the IP addresses, server addresses, and hosting are located abroad, including in Brazil, the Philippines, China, and Vietnam,” Wira said. Wira noted that the gambling syndicate attempted to relocate its operations to Indonesia from other countries. Before entering Jakarta, the network was known to have operated in Cambodia, Malaysia, and Myanmar. “Given that massive enforcement actions have been taken in those countries, the online gambling network tried to move its operational activities to Indonesia,” Wira explained. A total of 287 foreign nationals have been named as suspects. The breakdown of foreign suspects is as follows: 185 from Vietnam, 76 from China, 15 from Myanmar, 6 from Thailand, 3 from Laos, and 2 from Malaysia. The suspects held various roles, including customer service, programmers/IT, marketing administrators, financial administrators, and operational support. In addition to the foreign nationals, police also arrested four Indonesian citizens with the initials MAP, BT, DFA, and DA. Their roles included assisting the operation as financial administrators, managing building rentals, preparing nominee accounts, and helping to arrange residence permits for the foreign nationals. Police are still pursuing the leaders of the syndicate. “We can be more certain that this is a syndicate controlled from abroad. Based on digital forensic data, they had only been operating in Indonesia for about two months before the arrest,” he said.