China’s top ‘professional mistress’ arrested over World Cup gambling

Careless tweets carrying World Cup predictions led to the arrest of an infamous Chinese “professional mistress,” according to a report by London-based daily The Times on Saturday.

Guo Meimei, 23, is being held with seven other defendants that were arrested in a police raid for breaching the country’s strict anti-gambling laws, the newspaper reported.

Her arrest has alarmed China’s massive illegal betting industry as record stakes are placed before tomorrow’s World Cup final in Brazil.

Meimei’s most recent publicity came when she used microblogging site Weibo - China’s equivalent of Twitter - to publicize her views on the World Cup and the considerable bets she had made in violation of the country’s anti-gambling laws.

Unsavory reputation

Police are reported to have detained her along with closing down eight other illegal gambling rings in the capital of Beijing.

Her arrest comes on the eve of the World Cup final and in a time when new phone apps have permitted hundreds of millions of Chinese smartphone users to place bets on-the-move.

The newspaper said Meimei gained an unsavory reputation through the eyes of the Chinese public after posting ostentatious images of her wealth online, including expensive jewelry, handbags and a Maserati.

She then claimed that she had acquired these goods through her senior management job at the mainland's largest charity organization, the Chinese Red Cross, which subsequently witnessed a massive fall in donations.

It later emerged that she had likely obtained her wealth through being a mistress to Beijing’s elite.

Gambling is thought to channel over $160 billion out of the Chinese economy each year.

The financial section of China’s state news agency argued that the football betting craze was amounting to $160 billion a year offshore, calling it a “severe threat to China’s economic security”.

Asian criminal gangs are assessed to launder more than $140 billion via illegal bookmaking annually.