Three arrested in Luque for operating unauthorized betting
Three Argentine women were arrested on Tuesday the 3rd, at 3:00 p.m., at a property in the Flor Itapuami area of Luque, in the Central Department, during a raid conducted by the National Police's Cybercrime Department. The operation is part of an open case regarding alleged violations of the gambling regulatory framework in force in Paraguay and took place near the intersection of 7 de Octubre and 19 de Setiembre streets.
What was seized from the property defines the case far better than the number of detainees. Officers confiscated 18 mobile phones, four laptops with their respective chargers, and various documents. The detail highlighted by investigators was not the sheer number of devices, but their status: all 18 had active, working SIM cards inserted, rather than being stored away as spares.
This ratio of people to devices is the key indicator driving the investigation's hypothesis. Eighteen active lines among three individuals averages out to six per person, and when including the laptops, the total reaches 22 devices—just over seven per detainee. No individual betting activity requires such a high density of equipment. However, an operation catering to multiple bettors simultaneously—taking bets, paying out, and maintaining each customer relationship on a dedicated line—requires precisely that kind of setup.
The raid was by no means an accidental discovery. Officials from the economic crimes division stated that prior to entering the premises, technical investigations as well as surveillance and monitoring tasks had been carried out, providing the necessary evidence to request the search warrant. In other words, police already had a clear idea of what they would find, meaning the raid marked the culmination of an investigative phase rather than its beginning.
The seized evidence was split between two separate custodies, an important factor regarding procedural timelines. The 18 phones were sealed and placed in the custody of the Specialized Cybercrime Investigation Department, led by Commissioner Rolando Benítez, pending their transfer to the Public Prosecutor's Office. Meanwhile, the four laptops and documents were handed over to the intervening Criminal Unit, which must arrange the procedures for forensic analysis. These represent two parallel expert examination tracks within the same case file.
The formal classification of the case places it within a regulatory framework that is nearly three decades old. The case is being handled as a prosecutorial investigation for offenses against Law No. 1,016/97 and its amendments—the legislation that governs the country's gambling regime and is enforced by the Comisión Nacional de Juegos de Azar (CONAJZAR). Today, all enforcement and oversight of online betting in Paraguay still relies on this 1997 framework.
The operation in Luque is also the second case of its kind to make headlines within two days. On Monday, authorities dismantled an illegal sports betting ring operating behind the facade of a call center in downtown Asunción, resulting in four arrests—three of them Argentine nationals—and the seizure of over one hundred mobile phones. This comparison provides a sense of relative scale: in Asunción, there were at least 25 devices per detainee, compared to six in Luque, suggesting that the Flor Itapuami property acted more like a branch node than a central operations hub.
There is a distinct pattern shared by both operations that warrants attention beyond the numbers. In both cases, the detainees were predominantly Argentine citizens, and in both instances, the Cybercrime unit led the intervention. While nothing made public confirms that they belong to the same legal case file, it does point to an established modus operandi: technical infrastructure set up on Paraguayan soil to serve demand generated across the border, using mobile devices as their primary tool and maintaining no visible commercial storefront.
The institutional backdrop is also shifting. Since October, Congress has been reviewing an Executive branch proposal to replace CONAJZAR with a National Gambling Directorate, endowed with administrative and financial autonomy and equipped with specialized tools specifically designed to combat illegal gambling. While lawmakers debate the bill, the crackdown on unauthorized gambling continues to lean on the 1997 statute and the operational capacity of the police—precisely the structural imbalance that the reform bill claims it will correct.
The Comisión Nacional de Juegos de Azar is the Paraguayan authority responsible for licensing, auditing, and overseeing the sector, including licensed online betting platforms, with a mandate established under Law No. 1,016/97. The Specialized Cybercrime Investigation Department is the National Police unit dedicated to computer-related crimes and investigations requiring digital forensics and device analysis. Luque is located in the Central Department and forms part of the Greater Asunción metropolitan area.
Tags: Paraguay, illegal gambling, Conajzar, cybercrime