Politics & Law
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| The People’s Court in Hà Nội has announced that an appeal trial for an online gambling case involving trillions of đồng and two former generals from the public security sector will be held on March 5.— VNA/VNS Photo |
HÀ NỘI — The People’s Court in Hà Nội has announced that an appeal trial for an online gambling case involving trillions of đồng and two former generals from the public security sector will be held on March 5.
The appeal will take place over eight days and involve 83 defendants who were initially tried at the People’s Court of the northern province of Phú Thọ.
The defendants will not include two former police generals Phan Văn Vĩnh and Nguyễn Thanh Hoá, who did not appeal against their sentences of nine years and 10 years in prison, respectively, for abusing their positions.
Two other defendants from the first trial, Phan Sào Nam (former chairman of the board of directors of VTC Online Telecommunications Co. (VTC Online) and Nguyễn Văn Dương (former chairman of the members council of the Hi-tech Security Development and Investment Co. (CNC) did not lodge appeals but will still be tried at the request of the procuracy. At the first trial, Nam was given five years and Dương 10 years on two charges of organising gambling and money laundering.
The first trial was held in November last year.
Following the verdict, the Phú Thọ People’s Procuracy lodged an appeal asking the court in Hanoi to review three issues: the application of aggravating circumstances to 27 defendants and extenuating circumstances for 36 defendants. The procuracy also appealed against the confiscation of money used in gambling from 43 defendants.
The online gambling ring was run through the card game Rikvip/Tip.club and was led by Phan Sào Nam and Nguyễn Văn Dương.
The ring included 25 tier-1 outlets, 5,877 tier-2 outlets and 42,956,718 gambling accounts. It was found to have gained more than VNĐ9.85 trillion (US$428.2 million) in revenue from online gambling. — VNS
