Fabric Company Owner Led a Double Life, Supplying Illegal Gambling Sites to 2,133 Adult PC Rooms

[Financial News, Ulsan = reporter Choi Soo-sang] An organized crime ring that ran illegal gambling sites with wagers totaling 120 billion won from overseas bases and supplied them to adult PC rooms in South Korea has been arrested in a sweeping police operation.
Ulsan Metropolitan Police Agency said on the 31st that it had arrested 15 people, including the operator, a general director, a domestic sales chief, site developers, and members of an overseas call center, on charges including violations of the Game Industry Promotion Act and opening gambling venues. Nine of them were detained.
According to police, the group operated an illegal gambling site offering slot games and baccarat from servers in Vietnam between December 2025 and May 2026. The site was distributed to 2,133 adult PC rooms nationwide, and the total amount wagered was estimated at about 120 billion won.
The investigation began in April during a crackdown on illegal currency exchange operations at an adult PC room in Jung-gu, Ulsan Metropolitan City. Police did not stop at punishing the owner. Instead, they traced the supply chain for the gambling program, raided the Ulsan sales office disguised as an interior design company, and arrested the management team. They later arrested a developer responsible for renewing the program in Seoul. The arrests were especially significant because they came during preparations for a site relaunch, cutting off the group’s ability to resume operations by detaining both the ringleader and the developer at the same time.
Police then tracked the overseas network and completed the arrests. After learning that the domestic ringleader had been detained, overseas call center workers who had fled to the Philippines were forced by police measures to invalidate their passports to return voluntarily to Incheon International Airport, where they were arrested and detained on the spot.
During the investigation, police seized 39 million won in cash, 25 mobile phones, 43 PCs, and laptops used for site development. They also sought preservation orders on criminal proceeds worth 3.26255 billion won from 13 suspects. Courts approved about 2.7 billion won of that amount, freezing the group’s funding sources.

Investigators found that the suspects had been living double lives while posing as ordinary businesspeople. The site operators ran a fabric company in Seoul, recruited their own employees, and sent them to a call center in Vietnam. The Ulsan-area sales office operated under the sign of an interior design firm. Police also found cases in which a father and daughter jointly ran an adult PC room, and co-conspirators in the sales network were former schoolmates. Private relationships such as family ties, friendships, and workplace connections were exploited as channels for expanding the criminal operation.
After dismantling the illegal gambling site network 'Dopamine' in June, Ulsan Metropolitan Police Agency continued special crackdowns on adult PC rooms. More recently, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Ulsan Metropolitan City, five district and county governments, and the Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC) to build a joint response system linking police enforcement with administrative penalties by local governments.
Ulsan Metropolitan Police Agency chief Yoon Yoon-jong said, "Illegal gambling is more than a personal deviation. It is a serious social problem that destroys household finances and becomes a funding source for criminal organizations." He added, "We will track down the suppliers, overseas ringleaders, and other masterminds behind the network to the very end and root out the gambling distribution chain."
[email protected] Choi Soo-sang Reporter