The first operation, codenamed 'Soga', was launched last October and involved 266 raids in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam and resulted in more than 430 individuals arrested and 272 underground gambling dens shut down.

Speaking at the Global Conference on Asian Organised Crime hosted by the Singapore police force, Noble said the gambling dens that were closed handled an estimated US$680mil in illegal bets worldwide.

As an indication of how widespread football gambling is, European football's governing body UEFA had asked European police to investigate the results of at least 26 matches last year which were suspected to have been manipulated by Asian betting syndicates.

Noble said that while the amount of money involved in match-fixing was unknown, UEFA claimed that an overseas syndicate made US$5mil on one championship match alone last July.

Malaysian police and the Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) are working together to identify syndicates using the Internet to accept football bets.

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan said a task force has been set up and CID officers were currently monitoring suspected illegal bookmaking syndicates involved in accepting football bets via the Internet.

"Syndicates here operate using servers from other countries and that is why it is difficult for us to trace and nab the main culprits".

"That is why we have now asked our Asean counterparts as well as other police forces in the Asian region to provide us with information on syndicates linked with our country", he told The Star.

Musa said police here would exchange information with their counterparts worldwide.

About 200 participants from various law enforcement agencies of 32 countries, including Malaysia, attended the two-day conference.