$12.9 million online gambling ring broken up

By Duc Hung   January 8, 2020 | 12:39 am PT
$12.9 million online gambling ring broken up
Four men arrested for running a gambling in Ha Tinh in central Vietnam, January 6, 2020. Photo courtesy of Ha Tinh Police.
Police in the north-central province of Ha Tinh have arrested four men for allegedly running a football gambling ring.

On Monday they took in Nguyen Xuan Hung, 31, the suspected kingpin, Nguyen Huu Lam, 45, Duong Huu Nha, 24, and Cao Van Tuyen, 30. The gang had allegedly transacted bets worth VND300 billion ($12.9 million) in four months.

Hung bought a general account on b8ag.com, a multilingual website hosted on an overseas server, and operated it among gamblers in Ha Tinh and several other provinces from August.

At the end of December the Ha Tinh police together with their counterparts in the northern province of Quang Binh and the southern provinces of Binh Duong and Ba Ria-Vung Tau launched dozens of raids on Hung's gambling establishments.

They seized VND122 million ($5,253) worth of cash and other items.

Clients bet without using their real names and with unregistered prepaid SIM cards, which has made it difficult for investigators to identify them.

Last August the Ministry of Public Security had busted another gang that used b8ag.com to enable gamblers to wager VND1.6 trillion ($69 million) and arrested 13 people.

Vietnam legalized sports betting in 2017 and allows on a trial basis people aged over 21 with a monthly income of at least VND10 million ($432) to gamble in a casino on the southern Phu Quoc Island.

But all other forms of gambling remain illegal.

 
 
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