KUALA LUMPUR, May 25: A week before the World Cup football finals begin, Kuala Lumpur police have launched an operation to nab bookies believed to be handling millions of dollars in bets, a report said Saturday.

Anti-vice, gaming and secret society division chief Fawzi Arshad said police had identified those involved and would pick them up soon.

“We mean business. We know who they are and we are on their trail to curb the menace,” he told the New Straits Times, adding that the operation would be intensified until the World Cup ends.

Between 2000 and last month, Fawzi said police had arrested 78 suspected bookies including 11 foreigners, and recorded illegal bets worth 12.5 million ringgit (3.29 million dollars)..

Their biggest success this year was in January when they detained seven suspected men, including two Britons and three from Hong Kong, suspected of taking about 4.8 million ringgit in football bets, he added.

In soccer-mad Malaysia there is no legal football gambling

The newspaper said Malaysian civil servants have been banned from watching live telecast of football matches and told to concentrate on their work.—AFP