San Jose police and the FBI are now working to track down the owners and operators of Vietnamese cafes that were raided in connection to illegal gaming.
Law enforcement units late Tuesday raided 11 cafes in San Jose and seized about 100 gambling video machines. Police and FBI agents also detained dozens of people.
The raids dubbed "Operation Omni" are part of an illegal gaming investigation and were all held at 6 p.m. and which capped off a year and a half of investigation, authorities said.
Several of the raided cafes were shut down on Wednesday. For other cafes, it appeared to be business as usual.
Police said it is not too surprising that so far the raids have not produced many arrests. The toughest part is tracking down the people in charge of the gambling operations, officials said.
The machines confiscated Tuesday can generate about $100,000 per week, police said.
Cafe customers interviewed Wednesday said they did not know the gaming was illegal and called it "harmless."
Police have said the raids are not only trying to crack down on illegal video machine gambling, but also an attempt to stamp out all the violence, prostitution and drugs that go along with the activity. There are only four kinds of gambling that are legal in California, which include card rooms, Native American casinos, the Lottery and race tracks.
"We do know sometimes there is prostitution, drugs and violence and we want to remove that," San Jose Police Sgt. Heather Randol said. "These machines bring in a lot of money and so there's competition for that money. We want to make sure this does not continue here in San Jose."
Raids were held at the following locations on Tuesday:
- Mai Phuong Cafe, 2897 Senter Road
- Xinh Xinh Cafe, 1075 Tully Road
- Wave Cafe, 1969 Tully Road
- Got Hong Coffee House, 1694 Tully Road
- Vogue Cafe, 2455 Alvin Road
- Tuong Vi Cafe, 2485 Alvin Road
- Cafe Dang, 2860 Quimby Road
- Thuy Em Cafe, 1054 Story Road
- 168 Cafe, 950 Story Road
- Xanh Cafe, 1915 Alum Rock Ave.
- Golden King Teahouse, 2650 Alum Rock Ave.
Tuesday's raids follows similar operations held last month that netted more illegal gaming machines.
Local
On Feb. 25, a downtown San Jose business was raided in connection with illegal gaming.
Officers in that raid confiscated five slot machines and a surveillance monitor from the Family Wash and Dry business, about two block from San Jose City Hall.
Damian Trujillo contributed to this report.
