China has urged the Philippines to ban online gaming to support its crackdown on cross-border gambling, which it said foreign criminals had used to embezzle and launder funds as well as illegally recruit workers. When Diokno was asked if he thinks online gambling firms were being used as money laundering conduits, he replied "not necessarily". Benjamin Diokno, who is governor of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and head of the Anti-Money Laundering Council, has ordered the agency and the central bank's financial stability team to "put some sense to this online gambling". The Philippine gaming regulator has stopped issuing licenses to online gambling firms, and lawmakers and some ministers have called for tighter controls on Chinese visitors, saying many are illegal workers whose presence raises security concerns. Gambling is officially illegal in China, and Chinese officials know that these firms target the mainland and thus skirt the core of the Chin...