Pudong New Area People's Court has sentenced 28 people to up to 32 months in prison for their involvement in Shanghai's biggest online soccer gambling scheme, which took bets worth almost 100 million yuan (US$13.16 million).

Sentences ranged from nine months to two years and eight months behind bars, Xinhua news agency reported.

Fang Changli, the head of the gambling group, attained a soccer gambling account from an agent for an oversea gambling Website identified as A Tao with the help of Sun Ye in March, 2006, the court said.

Fang then offered the account to Yu Zhengqiu who was in charge of luring more people to bet on games. Sun was said to be responsible for all the transactions between Fang and the overseas Website, the court added.

Yu later recruited nine people into the gambling business who acted as sub-agents to recruit more online gamblers.

Fang, Yu and the sub-agents were said to take a cut of the gambling money from those they had introduced into the business, the court said.

Police caught two suspects involved in the case after they had received a report on December 4, 2006, saying that a group of people were always seen gambling on soccer games in a bar.

Police also seized a laptop from the suspects which helped them uncover the entire scheme.

The pair soon confessed to the police that they had recruited gamblers at the bar to bet on games during last summer's World Cup in Germany.

Police nabbed all 28 people involved in the case within 10 days and found that the defendants hade earned more than 1.15 million yuan.
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(Shanghai Daily August 20, 2007)