TAIPING: Policemen are going undercover to detect cyber cafes which provide gambling facilities.

Taiping OCPD Asst Comm Raja Musa Raja Razak said that the officers, based in other districts, have been "assigned to gamble" at suspected cyber cafes.

"These operators can recognise our local police and so we have assigned those from outstation instead.

"After spending some time at a particular cyber cafe where the officer would gamble, we would move in and make the arrest and seizures," he told reporters at the monthly district police parade here yesterday.

He said that unlike illegal video arcades, the cafes installed gaming programs in the computers.

The programs would be activated by the operators using a hidden switch when they felt it was safe to do so.

ACP Raja Musa said 72 computers from seven cyber cafes were seized this month in Kuala Sepetang, Simpang, Aulong, Pokok Assam and Taiping.

He said seven employees of the cafes had been released on police bail.

On complaints by Aulong assemblyman Yew Tian Hoe that police and the Taiping Municipal Council were slow in cracking down on such cyber cafe operators, ACP Raja Musa said:

"If he knows the location of such premises, please let me know and we will send in our undercover cops before we can act."

Yew, who brought The Star reporters to visit some of the cyber cafes recently, said he was afraid that youngsters would be exposed to the gambling habit if nothing was done against such premises.