Polda Metro Jaya Arrests Four Suspects in International Online Gambling Syndicate

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Cyber Crime Directorate of Polda Metro Jaya has dismantled an international online gambling syndicate operating the ‘1XBET’ website, arresting four suspects. AKBP Grawas Sugiharto, Head of Sub-Directorate IV of the Cyber Crime Directorate at Polda Metro Jaya, explained during a press conference in Jakarta on Tuesday that the case began with a cyber patrol conducted by his team on 23 May 2026. Officers discovered information regarding the 1XBET site and other websites containing gambling content. Following an investigation, the Cyber Crime Directorate carried out enforcement actions and arrested four suspects with different roles across various regions on 9 June 2026. Grawas detailed that the operation targeted three main clusters within the network. The first cluster involved a collector of bank accounts in Cianjur, West Java. The second cluster consisted of website operators and administrators in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan. The third cluster was the controller based overseas. Police suspect the involvement of a foreign national, as one wanted suspect is believed to be in Vietnam and Malaysia based on travel data. In the Cianjur cluster, police arrested a suspect identified as APS, who acted as a coordinator for sourcing nominee bank accounts used for depositing and withdrawing operational funds for the online gambling. Grawas stated that since April 2026, APS had been persuading villagers facing economic hardship to open bank accounts in exchange for payments ranging from Rp300,000 to Rp500,000 per account. Through this method, the suspect produced more than 500 accounts, which were then sent abroad. Police recorded that the network’s financial turnover had reached more than Rp2 billion since April 2026, a figure that does not yet include other layering accounts still under investigation. The Cyber Crime Directorate urged the public not to provide or trade personal data and bank accounts to other parties. The suspects are charged under the online gambling provisions of the Electronic Information and Transactions Law, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, as well as articles in the Criminal Code on gambling and money laundering, with a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.