Indonesia has frozen some 7,500 bank accounts reportedly linked to bookies and syndicates organizing gambling operations, a senior official of the country's central bank reported here on Thursday.

At a press conference held at the Communications and Digital Ministry building, Deputy Governor of Bank Indonesia (BI) Juda Agung told reporters that the central bank is taking active steps to ensure the payment system is not misused or used to facilitate illegal activities including online gambling.

As Southeast Asia's largest economy, Indonesia is stepping up measures to combat online gambling as the number of transactions suspectedly related to gambling activities is increasing across the country.

Gambling, both online and offline, is illegal in the archipelago. Participants and organizers of a gambling event can be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison and 25 million Indonesian rupiahs (about 1,575 U.S. dollars) fine.

Last Saturday, the Jakarta police detained more than 20 suspects for their alleged involvement in online gambling.