Chinese gamblers were arrested in a condominium raid in Bangkok.

The suspects were allegedly playing on illegal online casinos when they were detained by police in Bangkok on Thursday.

Police stormed the makeshift gambling den in the Huai Khwang district following a tipoff from neighbours that the occupants were allegedly taking narcotics.

But when officers stormed their way inside, they found no drugs. Instead, four men were huddled around their laptops while on a Chinese-language gambling site.

The suspects were identified as Li Youngzhao, 28, Luo Li, 29, and Liu Jianquan, 27, and Burmese man Chit Maw Maw Htay, 27, from China.

Investigators said the group were previously employed in Cambodian gambling sites before moving to Thailand on student visas.

Seized from them were seven illegal cigarette cartons, an OTP token tool, four laptops, and 10 mobile phones containing gambling website backdoor information and a cheat sheet for dealing with immigration officers.

The document reportedly included visa interview scripts, instructions on how to hide SIM cards, warnings about immigration inspections, and a list of condos where gambling is banned.

The alleged gamblers were charged with 'organising electronic gambling without permission, importing goods subject to excise tax into the country without paying the tax, and being foreigners who entered and resided in the country illegally'.

Police Lieutenant General Siam Boonsom, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, said: ‘During the arrest, the four suspects denied all charges and testified similarly, suggesting their answers were memorised. They claimed that they entered Thailand as students because they wanted to practise the Thai language and travel.

‘We did not believe their testimony because it was not in line with the behaviour identified during the investigation. After the arrest, we handed them and the seized items to the inquiry officer of Huai Khwang Police Station for further legal action.'

Gambling is illegal in China. However, the ban has given rise to a flourishing offshore gaming industry based in neighbouring Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, and the Philippines.

This week, Chinese gambling kingpin She Zhijiang, 43, was extradited to China for allegedly running a lucrative gambling complex in Shwe Kokko, Myanmar. Washington has called the village 'a resort city custom-built for gambling, drug trafficking, prostitution, and scams targeting people around the world.'

Beijing is stepping up crackdowns on scam compounds in lawless Myanmar and neighbouring Cambodia, amid international pressure from developed countries.

Border areas between Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia have become hubs for online fraud since the Covid-19 pandemic.

The United Nations reports that billions of dollars have been generated from the trafficking of hundreds of thousands of people forced to work in these compounds.