By Ato Lekinawa Costa
Online gambling arrived in Timor-Leste carrying the promise of a new digital economy. It was presented as an industry that could target overseas markets, attract foreign investment and generate revenue without exposing ordinary Timorese to the risks of gambling.
President José Ramos-Horta himself had expressed support for online gaming aimed exclusively at foreign customers. But as the industry expanded, a darker picture began to emerge: workers using false identities, allegations of deceptive marketing, legal and regulatory uncertainty, suspected online fraud centres and, eventually, police operations involving hundreds of foreign nationals. The digital dream had begun to collide with a reality Timor-Leste was not fully prepared to confront.
When AMD found work at an online gambling company in Dili, the job looked like an ordinary opportunity. In a country where formal employment is difficult to find, he had been hired to work in marketing, contacting customers in Indonesia.
But the identity he used was not his own. Neither was the photograph on his WhatsApp profile. And when customers asked where the company was located, he said, workers were told not to say Timor-Leste.
In April 2025, the online news outlet Neon Metin interviewed AMD (not his real name) about his experience working for Amizade Sentru Online. He said he had worked there for one month and two weeks without signing a written contract.
“I worked at Amizade Sentru Online for one month and two weeks, but we did not sign a contract,” AMD told Neon Metin. The company had spoken about a contract, he said, but nothing was ever put on paper.
His task was to telephone potential customers in Indonesia and persuade them to participate in online gambling. But before contacting them, he said, workers were instructed not to reveal their real identities.
“Usually, when we called customers, we could not use our real identities. We used fake names,” AMD said.
Workers contacted customers through WhatsApp but did not use their own photographs. AMD said they were instructed to use pictures of other people, including attractive women, to draw customers into conversations. When customers asked where the company was based, workers said it was in the Philippines, although the operation was physically located in Timor-Leste.
Customers commonly deposited US$5 or US$10, AMD said, while some transferred as much as US$100.
The work could also expose employees, particularly women, to sexual harassment. When customers lost money, AMD said, some sent explicit videos and nude photographs to workers. When he raised the issue with his supervisors, he recalled being told that such behaviour was normal and that they were there to make money.
In the same April 2025 investigation, Neon Metin interviewed another former worker, identified by the pseudonym JSM. She described a similar experience.
JSM said she had found the vacancy through Facebook and worked for the company for almost a month, also without a contract. After being interviewed and tested on her Indonesian-language ability, she was given a telephone containing numbers of potential customers.
Like AMD, she said she was instructed to use an Indonesian name and another person’s photograph.
Her account went further. JSM alleged that company leaders provided workers with sexually explicit photographs and videos to send to customers to attract them or persuade reluctant clients to gamble.
“Some customers we had to persuade or lobby to buy,” she said. “Sometimes we had to send sexual videos and photos to them.”
The company denied the allegations when contacted by Neon Metin. Its director, Ana da Conceição Fernandes, rejected claims that workers were instructed to use false identities or deceive customers, saying their roles were limited to customer service and marketing.
At the time of Neon Metin’s investigation, the company was registered and held a licence from the Inspector-General of Gaming. The gaming inspector confirmed that the company had a licence for virtual online gaming, while a legal expert interviewed for the report warned that Timor-Leste still lacked a dedicated law governing online gambling.
Earlier Testimony, New Relevance
More than a year later, the accounts AMD and JSM gave to Neon Metin in April 2025 have acquired new relevance.
There is no established connection between their former employer and the centres targeted in the latest police operations. The recent arrests concern separate alleged operations in Tibar, Manleuana, Bebonuk and Metiaut.
The workers’ testimony should therefore not be read as evidence against the people detained in those operations.
But their accounts provide a rare glimpse into practices that can exist behind foreign-facing online gambling operations based in Timor-Leste: the use of false identities, overseas customers, remote communication, aggressive marketing and workers operating with limited labour protection.
The current story began on 26 June 2026, when the National Directorate of Criminal Investigation dismantled an alleged online fraud centre operating from a residence in Tibar, Liquiçá Municipality.
Sixty-one foreign nationals, most of them Indonesians, were detained. When the suspects appeared before the Dili District Court on 29 June, prosecutors brought allegations involving criminal association, illegal gambling operations, money laundering and tax fraud.
Then, in early July, came a rapid succession of new operations.
On 8 July, authorities identified another suspected centre in Lemokari, Manleuana, where 29 foreign nationals, 28 Chinese citizens and one Cambodian, were detained.
Later that same day, at around 8:30 p.m., a joint operation by the Scientific and Criminal Investigation Police and Migration Services identified another suspected centre in Bebonuk, Dili. Around 110 Chinese and Cambodian nationals were detained.
The following morning, on 9 July, another police operation in Metiaut resulted in the detention of a further 24 Chinese nationals suspected of involvement in similar activities.
Together, the four operations resulted in the detention of more than 220 foreign nationals, making them among the largest police actions ever conducted in Timor-Leste against suspected international online fraud and illegal gambling networks. Authorities also seized large quantities of electronic equipment, including computers, laptops and more than 100 mobile phones from the Bebonuk operation.
Police spokesperson João Belo dos Reis said some suspects had managed to leave the locations before police arrived and that authorities would continue searching for them. Police were also coordinating with Migration Services to prevent potential suspects from leaving the country.
Investigators believe some of the individuals identified may previously have fled crackdowns on scam networks in Cambodia and attempted to establish new operations in Timor-Leste.
“We will not allow criminal organizations to use Timor-Leste as a base for illegal activities,” João Belo dos Reis said.
When the Digital Dream Began to Darken
The promise was attractive, Timor-Leste could enter the global digital economy by hosting online gaming platforms targeting overseas customers, creating jobs and generating new revenue. But the model depended on the country’s ability to distinguish legitimate online gaming from fraud and transnational criminal activity. As the industry expanded, gaps in regulation and oversight became increasingly visible, and the digital dream began to darken.
The arrests have also exposed a complicated history in Timor-Leste’s approach to online gambling.
In 2024, President José Ramos-Horta publicly supported the possibility of licensing online gambling aimed exclusively at overseas customers. In an interview with Macau’s public broadcaster TDM Canal Macau, he drew a distinction between gambling involving Timorese citizens and platforms targeting foreigners.
“[Gambling] is not something that interests me unless it targets foreigners,” Ramos Horta said. “I don’t want some poor Timorese to lose everything in gambling with all the human and sometimes tragic consequences. But if foreigners want to gamble online and Timor offers an online gambling possibility, fine.”
At the time, the Virtual Gaming Association of Timor-Leste had been established with the aim of promoting an online gaming industry. It recommended the issuance of business-to-consumer and business-to-business licences and proposed that Timor-Leste consider regulatory models used in Malta and the Isle of Man.
That earlier position is important because some online gambling companies operating from Timor-Leste also said their markets were overseas.
The company where AMD and JSM worked said its market was in Indonesia and other foreign countries. The workers themselves said they contacted Indonesian customers and presented the operation as being based outside Timor-Leste.
In principle, the difference between a legitimate, regulated online gambling industry targeting foreign customers and an operation involving fraud or other criminal activity should be clear.
In practice, the recent cases show how difficult that boundary can be to police.
By September 2025, Ramos-Horta’s public language had become far more cautious. He described online gambling as extremely dangerous and said it should be shut down in Timor-Leste. He warned that sophisticated organized criminal groups search for countries they perceive as vulnerable.
Justice Minister Sérgio Hornai similarly said illegal activities would not be tolerated and that anyone involved must be held accountable, while stressing the need for a fair legal process.
The contrast between Ramos-Horta’s 2024 support for a foreign-facing online gambling industry and his later warnings reflects the wider dilemma now confronting the country: whether Timor-Leste can separate a regulated digital gambling industry from the transnational fraud networks that have expanded across Southeast Asia.
The Warning from Oecusse
The warning signs had emerged before the latest arrests.
In August 2025, police and intelligence officers raided an online gambling operation at the five-star Oeupu Hotel in the Special Administrative Region of Oecusse-Ambeno.
The company involved, described in the report as the Malaysia-linked Seagull Resort, had reportedly paid US$4 million in rent to Oecusse’s non-fiscal revenue.
The scale of the technology seized was significant.
In relation to suspected illegal gambling activities, authorities confiscated 87 desktop computers, 13 laptops, 194 mobile phones, three flash drives, Wi-Fi equipment, two Starlink routers and 135 Indonesian SIM cards.
In connection with suspected computer fraud, they seized further computers, phones, a printer and a money-counting machine.
Investigators compared the suspected network to transnational criminal operations previously identified in Myanmar, Cambodia and the Philippines.
The Oecusse case raised a difficult question: what happens when an activity appears to enter the country through formal investment, licensing or administrative channels but is later suspected of criminal conduct?
The company’s lawyer reportedly argued that the online gambling operation had received government authorization through the Inspector-General of Gaming. The former president of the Oecusse regional authority, Rogério Tiago de Fátima Lobato, said the company had paid US$4 million and should be allowed due process while police conducted their work and the courts determined the case.
The case highlighted the blurred line between investment, licensed gaming, online gambling and suspected digital fraud.
The People Behind the Screens
For workers such as AMD and JSM, however, the story begins somewhere much simpler: with the search for a job.
Young Timorese may enter such companies believing they have found work in marketing or customer service. Some may not fully understand the wider business operating behind the screen, the legal status of the platform they promote, or where the money ultimately goes.
Without written contracts, clear labour protections or effective oversight, workers themselves can become vulnerable links in an industry built across borders and screens.
The computers and mobile phones seized in Tibar, Manleuana, Bebonuk, Metiaut and Oé-Cusse may help investigators reconstruct the networks. The courts will ultimately determine whether crimes were committed and who should be held responsible.
But the stories AMD and JSM told Neon Metin in April 2025 offer an earlier warning.
Before online gambling and suspected scam networks become national-security cases involving hundreds of arrests, they can begin quietly, with a Facebook job advertisement, an office full of telephones, a fake WhatsApp photograph and a young worker told to use someone else’s name.
By the time the police arrive, the operation may already extend far beyond the room.