TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have busted a baseball gambling ring that included upper-level organized crime member, reports NHK (Feb. 8).
Between April and May of last year, Junichi Maeda, a 32-year-old executive of the Kyokuto-kai, and one other member of the the ring accepted 600 bets valued at 10,000 yen each on 28 Nippon Professional Baseball games.
The bets were placed via the smartphone application Line.
Police also arrested five customers of the operation, including Katsuya Motohara, a 32-year-old civil servant in the town of Isen in Kagoshima Prefecture.
Maeda admits to the allegations while Motohara denies the charges.
Since 2010, the has ring collected approximately 600 million yen in revenue through wagers on baseball, according to TBS News (Aug. 8). Police suspect that the revenue from the ring was used to fund the gang.
