HÀ NỘI — Phú Thọ Province police has begun legal proceedings against Nguyễn Thanh Hoá, former head of the High-tech Crime Police Department, over his alleged role in a major gambling and money laundering case.

Nguyễn Thanh Hoá, born 1958 in Bình Định and currently residing in Hà Nội, former Major General of the People’s Police, on Sunday was also put in jail for four months to be investigated for “organising gambling” as a crime under the Penal Code 1999.

The former policeman was suspended from his role at the end of 2017 after alleged involvement in online gambling rings, the very crime that his post required him to fight.

According to the Ministry of Public Security, the crime in question involved using the internet to illegally appropriate assets, organise gambling rings, trade fake invoices and launder money in Phú Thọ Province and other localities.

Previously, Phú Thọ police seized more than VNĐ1 trillion (US$43.9 million) from the gambling ring, and found an estimated $3.6 million in foreign currencies had been transferred to overseas accounts.

Deputy Prime Minister Trương Hoà Bình during a meeting late January said there might be many other cross-border online gambling rings like this one, bleeding millions of US dollar out of the country daily.

Earlier the same day, President Trần Đại Quang signed a decision to strip Hoá of his People’s Police title.

Police are expanding their investigation.

Previously, in a meeting chaired by Party General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng, the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Việt Nam’s Central Committee ordered the Police Party Central Committee to work with relevant agencies to closely scrutinise the case.

The Party’s top organ was of the view that this was a very serious, complicated and sensitive case of an especially large scale involving high-technology. The case involved numerous sectors, localities and individuals, including members of the police force, and has drawn public attention.

The Secretariat asked the Police Party Central Committee to work with competent agencies to investigate the case, clarify the liabilities of involved parties and handle the case in a strict, impartial and accurate manner, as well as submit timely reports to the Secretariat on the case’s developments. — VNS