Illegal gambling: 33 held in raid

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KUCHING: Thirty local men and three foreign women were detained by police following a raid on an illegal gambling den at a commercial centre in Stampin early yesterday morning.

The raid, dubbed ‘Ops Dadu/Limau’, took place at 1.35am when a team from the state’s Anti-Vice, Gambling and Gangsterism unit (D7), led by ASP Mohd Zulkarnain Abdullah, arrived at the premises and found the group engaged in a high-stake ‘Pai Gow’ session.

Police also seized gambling paraphernalia in the form of domino slabs and betting chips with numerical figures ranging from 100 to 50,000 printed on them.

The suspects, aged between 20 and 60, were hauled to the state police headquarters and detained under the Common Gaming Houses Act 1953 for further investigation.

According to a source, police had been monitoring the group’s activities for the past three days, adding that the decision was made to raid the premises yesterday as the group’s modus operandi was to operate from a specific location for a few days before relocating to another place to avoid being detected by police.