Car Automotive Resource Information Services

van to pay online debts

AT a banana leaf restaurant off Jalan Klang Lama, the waiter points to a man concentrating on his laptop. “He’s gambling now,” he says. “He sold his car and a van to pay debts he piled up after only three months of online gambling.” The story is a common one. With Wi-Fi technology allowing any gambler with a laptop to place bets any time or place, online racketeers appear to be one step ahead of anti-gambling laws.

Malay Mail’s investigations into the extent of online gambling revealed property dealers, civil servants and wives of the wealthy who all gamble online. A Malay Mail reporter visited two virtual casinos over the weekend with two regulars who tried their luck with RM20,000 and RM10,000 each. Both lost.

Both had opened an account each at Internet gambling websites in Cambodia and Vietnam after paying a deposit of about RM5,000 with their credit cards. The operators of the online casinos, mostly abroad, appoint agents in Malaysia. The local collectors go to their homes to collect cash and distribute winnings. In other cases, gamblers would, from their personal computers, use credit cards to set up prepaid gambling accounts with those Internet sites. In the course of the betting, losses would be deducted from the pre-paid account, and wins would be added to it.

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Sells His Car, Van Pay Online Debts

Stiffer Penalties For Car Thieves

Young car thieves responsible for most of Winnipeg’s thefts are immune — for now, at least — from Ottawa’s plan to make auto theft its own offence with stiffer penalties. Introduced yesterday, proposed changes to the Criminal Code apply to adults but young offenders are in the federal government’s crosshairs. Conservative MP Shelly Glover, a former city police officer who represents St. Boniface, said there are plans to make similar changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

“I don’t know when but we are working towards it. They’re two different acts (the YCJA and Criminal Code) and we’re doing one at a time,” Glover said at a press conference at the Public Safety Building. If approved by MPs, the Criminal Code changes would create a new “theft of a motor vehicle” offence, carrying an automatic minimum six-month sentence for a third or subsequent conviction.

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Otawa Stiffer Penalties For Car Thieves