The northern province of Phú Thọ’s Procuracy indicted 92 defendants in a major online gambling ring on Monday.— VNA/VNS PhotoTrung Kiên

PHÚ THỌ — The northern province of Phú Thọ’s Procuracy indicted 92 defendants in a major online gambling ring on Monday. 

They were charged with “using the internet to appropriate assets”, “organising gambling”, “gambling”, “illegally trading invoices”, “laundering money” and “abusing position and power while performing duties”.

According to the indictment, Hoàng Thành Trung, 40, a resident in Hà Nội’s Hoàng Mai District, met then Chairman of the VTC Online Company’s Board of Directors Phan Sào Nam in 2014 to discuss developing an online gambling system. 

In early 2015, Nam met with Nguyễn Văn Dương, then Chairman of the Members Council of the High-tech Security Development and Investment Company (CNC) to propose developing online gambling software and gave Dương a summary of an online game project. 

They later agreed that if monthly revenue topped VNĐ5 billion (US$217,000), CNC would enjoy 30 per cent of profits and VTC Online 70 per cent. If the revenue was between VNĐ5-15 billion, CNC would receive 35 per cent and VTC Online 65 per cent. 

There were a total of 54 games using virtual money called “Rik” on the portal Rikvip. Nam and Dương used a variety of methods to launder the thousands of trillions of đồng acquired via the gambling. 

Dương laundered more than VNĐ329 billion by sending it to the Urban Infrastructure Development Investment Corporation (UDIC) to transfer to the Bắc Giang-Lạng Sơn BOT company. Dương was also Chairman of the UDIC Board of Directors at the time. 

Both Nam and Dương face charges of “organising gambling” and “laundering money”.

Former General Director of the Ministry of Public Security (MoPS)’s General Police Department Phan Văn Vĩnh and former Director of the MoPS’s High-tech Crime Police Department Nguyễn Thanh Hóa were prosecuted for “abusing position and power while performing duties”, an offence that has a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

During the 28 months of operating technologies and software with card games such as Rikvip/Tip.club, 23Zdo and Zon/Pen, the games’ operators connected with multiple services and provided companies with a system of outlets to convert game scores into real-world currency and vice versa.

They attracted more than 42.95 million online accounts and earned nearly VNĐ10 trillion ($428.3 million) from users. — VNS