<div class=newsTextDataWrapInner>TAIPEI (July 2): Police in Taiwan have seized more than US$300 million in World Cup bets after busting an illegal online betting ring, authorities said on Thursday.</div>

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<div class=newsTextDataWrapInner>Taiwan did not qualify for the World Cup, but many people on the sporting-mad island are football fans.</div>

<div class=newsTextDataWrapInner>Police raided a house in the southern city of Tainan on Wednesday, Tainan City Police Department's Fourth Precinct said in a statement.</div><div class=inPageAd id=div-gpt-ad-inpage></div>

<div class=newsTextDataWrapInner>They arrested eight people and seized computers, mobile phones, ledgers and cash, the statement said.</div>

<div class=newsTextDataWrapInner>Five of the eight people had travelled from Hong Kong and Macao on tourist visas for the World Cup betting operation.</div>

<div class=newsTextDataWrapInner>The outfit had allegedly raked in nearly NT$10 billion (US$313 million) in bets on World Cup matches, police said.</div>

<div class=newsTextDataWrapInner>They had rented the five-storey house for the period of the tournament.</div>

<div class=newsTextDataWrapInner>Uploaded by Liza Shireen Koshy</div>
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TAIPEI (July 2): Police in Taiwan have seized more than US$300 million in World Cup bets after busting an illegal online betting ring, authorities said on Thursday.

Taiwan police bust US$300 mil World Cup betting ring

For most Malaysians, financial protection is something they rarely have to think about. They save, transact and rely on insurance or takaful protection with the expectation that the system will hold when it matters most.

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Here is a brief recap of some business news and corporate announcements that made the headlines on Monday.

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China has expelled two top military officers, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, from the Communist Party and the military over "serious violations of discipline and law", the state-run Xinhua news agency said on Monday.

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The main US stock indices advanced on Monday, powered by gains in artificial intelligence (AI) firms, as Treasury yields eased and crude prices tumbled more than 3% to hit an 11-day low on the prospect of a breakthrough in Middle East talks at a United Nations meeting this week.

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Vladimir Putin is set to travel to China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit hosted by President Xi Jinping but is likely to skip the Group of 20 (G20) in the US with Donald Trump.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the responsibility for the recent hacking incident involving OpenAI’s advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models was with that firm’s managers, while stopping short of suggesting any consequences.

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Alphabet Inc’s Google announced pricing and hardware specifications for the first so-called Googlebooks, marking a push into a high-end laptop market where built-in artificial intelligence (AI) features have become the norm.

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US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer indicated that the country and China&nbsp;remain divided on the terms of a trade truce extension, suggesting that three to six months is&nbsp;a range that Washington could support.

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Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) shares jumped on Monday, putting the company on track to close above US$1 trillion (RM4.08 trillion) in market value for the first time amid renewed optimism for chipmakers necessary to power artificial intelligence (AI).

China is over halfway to meeting its pledge to buy 25 million tonnes of US soybeans this year, but progress on a separate commitment to spend billions of dollars more on American crops has largely stalled.

US investments in Spain jumped 84% in the first half of 2026, as investors brushed aside political tensions between the two countries.

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Hong Kong’s stock exchange is seeking to further relax rules for publicly traded companies to conduct deals, as the Asian financial hub pushes to enhance its competitiveness as a listing destination.&nbsp;

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Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago president Austan Goolsbee warned the central bank cannot ignore repeated and persistent supply shocks, and must respond in a way that may cause economic hardship.

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Electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) service providers are updating their systems to recognise the design and features of the new-generation MyKad for identity verification.