On July 18, the Phu Tho Department of Public Security proposed 92 persons be prosecuted for one or some of the charges of organising gambling, gambling, illegally trading invoices, laundering money, bribery, using the internet to appropriate assets and abusing position and power while performing duties.
During the probe, Phu Tho police launched criminal proceedings against 105 persons for the seven charges, but investigation into 13, 12 of whom are being hunted, was suspended.
They said there is sufficient evidence to confirm that the online gambling ring through the card game Rikvip/Tip.club was led by Phan Sao Nam (former Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director of the VTC Online Telecommunications Company – VTC online) and Nguyen Van Duong (former Chairman of the Member Council of the Hi-tech Security Development and Investment Ltd Co. – CNC).
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 VND9.85 trillion ($428.2 million ) in revenue from online gambling.
Deducting more than VND3.7 trillion ($160.9 million ) paid for gamblers and involved companies to cover management costs, staff’s salary and tax, the involved persons received some VND4.71 trillion ($204.8 million ), including VND1.47 trillion ($63.9 million ) for Phan Sao Nam and VND1.65 trillion ($71.7 million ) for Nguyen Van Duong.
The investigation agency has seized more than VND1.34 trillion ($58.3 million) of money from the ring organisers and accomplices.
Phu Tho police said they also have sufficient ground to ask for the prosecution of Phan Van Vinh – former Lieutenant General and former Director General of the Police General Department under the Ministry of Public Security, and Nguyen Thanh Hoa – former Major General and former Director of the ministry’s Hi-tech Crime Police Department, for abusing their positions and power in association with the case.
Because of the case’s complexity, the investigation agency will continue the probe in a second phase to clarify persons and organisations with suspected involvement in the ring.
