Pudong New Area People's Court has sentenced 28 people to up to 32 months in prison for their involvement in Shanghai's biggest online soccer gambling scheme, which took bets worth almost 100 million yuan (US$13.16 million).

Sentences ranged from nine months to two years and eight months jail, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Fang Changli, the head of the gambling ring, gained a soccer gambling account with overseas gambling Website with the help of Sun Ye in March, last year, the court said.

Fang then offered the account to Yu Zhengqiu who had to attract others to bet on games. Sun was said to be responsible for all the transactions between Fang and the overseas Website.

Yu later recruited nine people into the gambling and they acted as sub-agents and recruited other on-line gamblers.

Fang, Yu and the sub-agents took a cut of the gambling money from the players they introduced, the court said.

Police caught two suspects after they were told last December about a group of people who were always seen gambling on soccer games in a bar.

Police seized a laptop from the suspects which helped them uncover the entire scheme.

The pair soon confessed to the police that they had recruited gamblers at the bar to bet on games during last summer's World Cup in Germany.

Police nabbed all 28 people involved in the case within 10 days and found that the defendants had earned more than 1.15 million yuan.

(Shanghai Daily August 21, 2007)