Vietnamese gambling ring leaders made millions

Earlier this year Vietnamese police broke up an extensive gambling ring that had influence at senior levels of the national police high tech security structure (see previous reports). The financial extent of the enterprise was revealed in prosecution filings this week, when the police proposed the prosecution of 92 suspects involved in various illegal gambling, bribery, abuse of power, and money laundering charges.

The filings show that police believe there is sufficient evidence to confirm that the online gambling ring through the card game Rikvip/Tip.club was led by Phan Sao Nam (former Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director of the VTC Online Telecommunications Company – VTC online) and Nguyen Van Duong (former Chairman of the Member Council of the Hi-tech Security Development and Investment Ltd Co. – CNC).

The financial figures quoted in the filings are impressive; 9.85 trillion VND (US$ 428.2 million) in revenue from online gambling on 42,956,718 gambling accounts.

Deducting more than 3.7 trillion VND (US$160.9 million) paid for gamblers and involved companies to cover management costs, staff’s salary and tax, the involved persons received some 4.71 trillion VND (US$ 204.8 million), including 1.47 trillion VND (US$ 63.9 million) for leaders Phan Sao Nam and 1.65 trillion VND (US$ 71.7 million) for Nguyen Van Duong.

Investigators have thus far seized more than 1.34 trillion VND (US$ 58.3 million) of money from the ring organisers and accomplices.

The police are also requesting the prosecution of former Lieutenant General and former Director General of the Police General Department under the Ministry of Public Security, Phan Van Vinh and Nguyen Thanh Hoa – former Major General and former Director of the ministry’s Hi-tech Crime Police Department, for abusing their positions and power in association with the case.

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