A Houston police officer was among five people arrested during the latest bust in a two-year investigation that targeted gambling parlors in the Chinatown neighborhood, officials said Friday.

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced the new arrests on Friday, saying the officer and others were detained the day before at a gambling parlor at 10804 Bellaire Boulevard. She said the parlor was operating at Café Than Quynh.

She also identified the officer as Thomas Lam, saying he acted as bouncer at the parlor, granting access to players and himself playing at times.

"The evidence shows that he’s a prolific gambler, and he gambled his career away," she said.

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Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said Lam, 42, has been on the force since late 2007.

"He's not going to be serving much longer," the chief said. "I think he's a disgrace to the badge."

The overall operation has netted 41 arrests, including those of Lam and two other police officers. Authorities have seized $2.4 million in cash throughout the multi-year undertaking.

During the last bust in March, authorities arrested 22 people and seized $2.3 million in cash. Two of those arrests were of Houston police officers Larry Nguyen and Huy Ly.

The bust on Thursday was smaller, seizing over about $21,000 from the establishment, according to the District Attorney's Office. Ogg said the cafe operated with hidden rooms housing gambling machines, often frequented by members of the Kai Bang gang. There's no evidence to support that Lam or anyone else who was arrested Thursday were gang members.

Ogg has emphasized in the past that game rooms themselves aren't illegal -- they're regulated by the city and county -- but that much of the activity taking place in them can be. Certain gambling machines are prohibited, and operators can't pay out winnings over a small legal limit.

The commonality among all of the busts in the operation is that none of the money flowing through the game rooms is taxed, Ogg said.

"Organized crime thrives on money, and we just took millions of dollars from them," the top prosecutor said. "Those are dollars that have never been taxed. Those are dollars that literally attract cockroaches like cake to a location, and the cancer spreads internally and externally."

And illegal game room activity is a huge driver of violent crime in the Chinatown area, causing many residents to feel on edge for the past several years, Acevedo said.

Lam faces two misdemeanor charges related to operating an illegal game room. Four others face felony charges of money laundering. Those include the owner of the facility, a manager and other game-room workers, named as follows: Vu The Vo, James Wang, Thy Nguyen and Andy Vo.