HÀ TĨNH — Police in Hà Tĩnh Province have busted an online football betting ring with total transactions easily reaching up to VNĐ3 trillion (US$130.4 million).

At a press conference on Tuesday, police said that 45 people had been arrested for their alleged involvement in the ring, of whom 29 were said to be the organisers while 16 were gamblers.

Hà Tĩnh Criminal Police Division first caught wind of two football betting rings named G18 and RQ22 in October 2018. Local police decided to initiate collaboration with forces from the Ministry of Public Security and colleagues in Khánh Hoà, Bình Định, Phú Yên and HCM City after initial investigations showed that the rings stretched over several localities.

Police soon identified 42-year-old Phạm Hải as the leader of the G18 ring while Hồ Xuân Đạt, 28, managed RQ22. However, it turned out that they were both involved in a bigger gambling ring under top boss 43-year-old Lê Cảnh Bảo.

All three lived in Nha Trang City, Khánh Hoà Province.

Đạt and Hải ran the rings via b88ag.com, bong88.com and cuocbanh88.com. They created 1,001 accounts for high and low-level administrators and 565 accounts for gamblers in Hà Tĩnh, Khánh Hoà, Bình Định, Phú Yên and HCM City.

Hà Tĩnh police on May 26 carried out a raid and arrested 11 suspects before the arrests of Bảo, Hải and Đạt five days later.

The police said the online betting rings started operating in October 2018. Each ring had an average transactions worth VNĐ500 billion each month, making the total amount gambled ratchet up to VNĐ3 trillion. — VNS