105 days of secret investigation into a front company by the General Department of Police

Participating from the time of solving the case to the debate at the first instance trial, Mr. Le Xuan Loc (Head of the Department of Prosecution and First Instance Trial Supervision of the People's Procuracy of Phu Tho province) shared withPV's background of arresting Nguyen Van Duong was when he was supported and protected by the Director General of the General Department of Police Phan Van Vinh and Director of Department C50 Nguyen Thanh Hoa.

Mr. Loc said that on August 30, 2017, he was asked by his superiors to go to Hanoi immediately to coordinate with the investigation agency. In the afternoon, the working group brought a search warrant to the headquarters of the High-Tech Security Development Investment Company Limited (CNC) in an office building on De La Thanh Street, Hanoi.

Initially, the officer on duty encountered uncooperative behavior from CNC General Director Luu Thi Hong. Hong loudly asked, "Do you know which company this is?" and then called Duong over.

At nearly 6 p.m., Duong showed up. Contrary to the staff's fears, Duong confidently spoke to the investigator, saying: "Very good, very good. The Phu Tho police dare to come down here to search the Ministry's company."

Having finished speaking, Duong took out his phone and called Major General Nguyen Thanh Hoa (Director of the High-Tech Crime Investigation Police Department - C50) to discuss the CNC being searched.

The phone call was then transferred to the investigator by Duong. Faced with the resolute attitude of the officers on duty, Director Hoa on the other end of the line said: "If there is an order, then just do it."

23:34, the arrest warrant was announced. Duong was handcuffed but defiant. When Duong was escorted by the police, Mr. Loc saw a group of bald-headed young men with visible tattoos standing in the lobby of the building. But with the appearance of nearly 100 police guards mobilized by the Ministry's leadership, this group did not make any move.

That day, CNC had just made an offering to the wandering souls before the full moon of the seventh lunar month, and was preparing to hold a ceremony for the staff to celebrate. It was an unprecedented grand ceremony in the impression of an officer participating in the execution of the arrest warrant.

From this moment, the command center of the Special Investigation Committee was established in Hanoi. 30 investigation teams were assigned tasks.

The search warrant for CNC and the arrest of Duong "startled the snake in the forest". Many people involved managed to escape, including Phan Sao Nam (Director of VTC Online). However, after a short time leaving Vietnam, Nam returned home and surrendered at the end of October 2017.

Nam was identified as having colluded with Duong to operate the RikVip card game system. As assigned, CNC released services, provided payment services, and held the license. VTC Online produced and developed service content, and invested in infrastructure for the card game to operate.

Mr. Loc said that both the investigation agency and the Phu Tho Procuracy know that touching CNC means "touching" the protectionist forces. If there is not enough solid evidence, those involved in solving the case will have to "sit in". However, the officers on duty are always confident because they are constantly encouraged and supported. There are leaders who say they are "ready to take off their official uniforms if they are wrong", but what they are doing is right.

When the evidence was gathered, there was enough basis to prosecute Duong and issue a temporary detention order, the members of the Investigation Committee breathed a sigh of relief after 7 days of sitting on fire, from the time the arrest warrant was executed. At this time, Duong's confidence had "deflated" because there was no hope of being released on bail.

The representative of the Phu Tho People's Procuracy said that during the first 6 days of interrogation, Duong only admitted to operating the game portal, the system collected 100 billion VND and received 800 billion VND every day. Duong insisted that he did not know what online gambling was.

The prosecution allowed Duong to meet his family because he promised to return more than 500 billion VND of illegal profits. However, when he received a 10-year prison sentence on the afternoon of November 30, the leader of the country's largest gambling ring only paid more than 200 billion VND.

After arresting Duong and Nam, from September to the end of December 2017, officers from the security investigation agency and the Phu Tho Provincial People's Procuracy had to restore data from the CNC server to determine the revenue of the line and the amount of gambling money.

With the support of the Cyber ​​Security Department (A68), by April 2018 the data was restored and requested for appraisal by the Institute of Criminal Science.

According to Mr. Loc, Duong was arrested 105 days after Phu Tho Police discovered the online gambling ring from investigating the seemingly unrelated act of fraud in appropriating 110 scratch cards from Le Van Huy.

Huy was arrested at the end of July 2017. Police discovered that Huy had loaded cards to play the Rikvip card game, and from there, revealed a gambling network in the form of online card games, but operating openly and advertising loudly.

Assessing the seriousness of the case, Phu Tho Police requested the Special Investigation Committee to investigate accurately, act quickly and be extremely secretive.

With permission from the Ministry of Public Security to establish a front company, at the end of 2011, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hoa, then Director of Department C50, signed a memorandum of cooperation with CNC company, which had just been established by Nguyen Van Duong.

Under the name of a police company, Duong repeatedly asked Director Hoa and Director General of the General Police Department Phan Van Vinh to allow him to test an online gambling game. Although not yet permitted, in mid-2015, Duong and Nam allowed the gambling game to operate.

In 2015-2017, Mr. Vinh and Mr. Hoa knew that the gambling game was operating illegally but still turned a blind eye. They even applied for a license for the game but failed. In two years of operation, the line had an illegal revenue of more than 10,000 billion VND.

On November 30, after a 13-day trial, the People's Court of Phu Tho province sentenced Duong to 10 years in prison and Nam to 5 years in prison for two crimes.Gambling organization, Money laundering. Defendant Vinh was sentenced to 9 years and Hoa to 10 years for the crime.Taking advantage of position and power while performing official duties;fine each person 100 million dong.

The remaining 88 defendants received sentences ranging from VND40 million to three years in prison for the following crimes:Organizing gambling, Gambling, Money laundering, Illegal trading of invoices, Using the internet to appropriate property.