Revealing new details about the 900 billion VND football betting case

(Baonghean.vn) - After 3 months of investigation, a gambling ring in the form of football betting via the Internet in Nghe An province, attracting 38,449 bets with about 900 billion VND, has just been dismantled by the police.

The Economic Police Department (PC46 - Provincial Police) has just coordinated with C50 (Ministry of Public Security) to successfully break up Project 126B, arresting 3 subjects who organized gambling in the form of football betting via the Internet with a total amount of about 900 billion VND. Colonel Nguyen Xuan Thiem - Head of PC46 discussed specifically with Nghe An Newspaper reporters about this project.

Colonel Nguyen Xuan Thiem - Head of Economic Police Department, Nghe An Provincial Police. Photo: Pham Bang

PV: Can you tell us how the process of establishing and discovering project 126B took place?

Colonel Nguyen Xuan Thiem:Recently, in the province, the situation of gambling in the form of football betting has become complicated, especially football betting via the internet. After a period of collecting documents, the Economic Police Department discovered a football betting organization line via the internet and the main subjects in this line.

In December 2016, the Economic Police Department established Project 126B and coordinated with the Department of High-Tech Crime Prevention (C50 - Ministry of Public Security) to fight and destroy it.

Through the monitoring process, the investigation agency determined that Tran The Hung (born in 1979, residing in Quang Trung ward, Vinh city) was managing the KX573 account, a master agent account specializing in organizing betting on the bong88.com website. In this master agent account, there are 6 agents and a total of 45 big gamblers in Vinh city regularly participating in gambling on the master agent system. The gambler account with the largest gambling amount is 6,299,311 points (about 250 billion VND), the account with the most losses is 171,616 points (about 7 billion VND). Most of the gamblers participating in gambling in this system lost. Football betting activities have been taking place since 2014 until now. The total amount of bets is 22,894,360 points (each point is equivalent to 40,000 VND), equivalent to 900 billion VND, with a total of 38,449 bets.

After 3 months of establishing the project, on March 29, the Project Board urgently arrested 3 subjects, all living in Vinh City, including Tran The Hung (born 1979, residing in Quang Trung Ward) as the ringleader; Le Hong Trung (born 1987, residing in Ben Thuy Ward) and Ngo Minh An (born 1970, residing in Trung Do Ward).

The police seized all the documents they were carrying. Searching their homes, the police seized 2 laptops and 5 mobile phones, which contained a lot of data related to the online football betting organization led by Tran The Hung. At the police station, the subjects confessed to all their crimes.

Tran The Hung (in black shirt) is the leader of the online football betting ring. Photo: Xuan Bac

PV: What are the methods and tricks of these subjects in gambling via football betting over the Internet?

Colonel Nguyen Xuan Thiem:During the investigation, the police determined that Tran The Hung was the ringleader, assigned and managed the KX573 account, and was also the general agent specializing in organizing betting on the website bong88.com. This account was assigned to Nghe An and organized for gamblers in Nghe An to participate.

Under Hung, there are 6 agents and under these agents are gamblers participating in betting. When granted an account, gamblers can participate in football betting sites and watch live football matches around the world, including domestic football matches.

When playing, gamblers must comply with the rules of how much they can bet each day, the win-loss ratio of each match, and the player will choose to bet on each match such as the upper door, the lower door...

There will be dozens of live football matches on TV every night and in each match, each gambler can bet dozens of times. For example, at the beginning of the match, they bet on this score but towards the end of the first half, they bet on another score, even betting on throw-ins, corner kicks... It's all betting.

Reporter: Who are the people involved in gambling? How does Tran The Hung organize debt collection from gamblers after they participate?

Colonel Nguyen Xuan Thiem:Through the investigation, the police determined that the subjects participating in gambling all have financial conditions and social status. When losing, the issue of debt collection may be raised by the initiator. However, their ability to collect debt is very high. In cases where the debt has not been paid in time, there are people who come to collect the debt, forcing the gambler to pay.

The subjects arrested by the police all have criminal records. For example, subject Tran The Hung has a previous conviction for drugs and a previous conviction for gambling, so these subjects have a position in the business community, so most gamblers participating in betting are required to pay fairly and Hung can take the money at any time.

Tran The Hung also established a chain of pawn shops called Nhat Tin Nghe An Company Limited. Hung assigned another person to manage this pawn shop system. This system in the city can generate a revenue of 500 million VND per month. These pawn shops were still operating normally before Hung was arrested. The police have collected a lot of data proving the criminal acts of these establishments.

Website where gamblers participate in football betting

Reporter: This is a major case, the subjects used high technology to commit crimes, so what difficulties did the police encounter in solving the case? What was the decisive factor in the success of the case?

Colonel Nguyen Xuan Thiem:This is the first time the Provincial Police Economic Police Department has established a project to combat criminals using high-tech achievements to commit crimes. Therefore, the investigation agency could not avoid initial confusion and difficulties, including in command and direction work and the implementation process of the detectives.

In addition, the methods of concealing the criminal process of these subjects are very high and clear in reality, they have opened chains of pawn shops and loans related to betting activities. It is not excluded that there are cases of losing money and then collecting debts, some pawn shops have people acting as direct agents for Tran The Hung.

However, thanks to the smooth coordination and high-level cooperation with the Department of High-Tech Crime Prevention (C50 - Ministry of Public Security), along with other functional agencies, the case was successfully solved.

The first success factor of the project was that although it took 3 months to complete, it ensured absolute secrecy and surprise in solving the case with the participation of many forces.

Second, when arresting the subjects, the police seized especially important related documents submitted by these subjects themselves. These documents accurately and clearly reflect the football betting line held by the subjects and provided to the players.

Reporter: It is known that the investigation is continuing to expand. So what is the police investigation agency's view on handling these subjects?

Colonel Nguyen Xuan Thiem: The police investigation agency is currently detaining 3 suspects and has summoned a number of others for questioning. At the same time, the provincial police agency is coordinating with C50 (Ministry of Public Security) and the provincial People's Procuracy to unify evidence documents from March 29 to present.

The viewpoint of the police investigation agency is to initiate a case, prosecute the accused and apply preventive measures against the subjects being detained to serve the investigation to expand the project.

Thank you comrade!

Pham Bang

(Perform)