Nghe An busts many football betting rings during Euro 2024 season
The European Football Championship (EURO 2024) takes place from June 15 to July 15, 2024. This is a major sporting event, attracting a large number of viewers. However, in addition to the excitement of the tournament, criminals gambling in the form of football betting, especially football betting on the internet, have also arisen. Accordingly, many betting lines have been investigated and eliminated by the authorities, with the amount of money up to billions of dong.
Continuously destroying gambling rings
Most recently, Yen Thanh District Police have busted two football betting rings in the area, arresting 13 suspects and proving that the suspects used over 300 million VND for gambling.
Specifically, on July 8, Yen Thanh District Police arrested 8 subjects, all residing in Ma Thanh Commune (Yen Thanh), for gambling in the form of football betting. During the arrest, the police seized 8 mobile phones, 40 million VND in cash and many related documents. Initially, the Investigation Agency proved that the amount of money the subjects used for football betting was 260 million VND.
On July 7, Yen Thanh District Police also successfully broke up a gambling ring in the form of football betting in Trung Thanh Commune, Yen Thanh District, arresting 5 subjects, seizing 5 mobile phones, and 3 ATM cards. Initially, the investigation agency proved that the total amount of money used by the subjects for gambling purposes was 85 million VND.
Previously, Vinh City Police successfully broke up a case, eradicated an inter-provincial EURO football betting ring, and arrested 18 subjects. Specifically, through the work of grasping the situation, Vinh City Police discovered that Ho Xuan Hoa (born in 1989), residing in Minh Thanh commune, Yen Thanh district; temporarily residing in Di An city, Binh Duong province, took advantage of the EURO 2024 final round to organize football betting for gamblers via the Internet. To avoid detection by the police, Hoa pretended to visit his hometown in Yen Thanh district but in fact, he was operating and organizing for gamblers to participate in betting on matches taking place at EURO 2024.
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In that situation, in order to promptly combat and eradicate the mobile, inter-provincial football betting ring and arrest the subjects, Vinh City Police established a special project. Persistently and flexibly deploying professional measures, on July 2, Vinh City Police successfully broke up the special project, eradicated the gambling organization and gambling in the form of football betting via the Internet, operating mobile, inter-provincially, simultaneously deployed 18 working groups to arrest 18 subjects in the provinces of Nghe An, Thanh Hoa, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Ho Chi Minh City. The exhibits seized by the police included 18 mobile phones and many documents and evidence related to the organization of gambling and other gambling.
Initially, Vinh City Police clarified that on July 1, 2024, Ho Xuan Hoa organized gambling for gamblers to participate with a total of more than 1.3 billion VND. Currently, the investigation is being continued and expanded by the Vinh City Police Investigation Agency.
Do not participate in gambling in any form
According to authorities, gambling crimes in the form of football betting are extremely complex in form and scale, from spontaneous, simple, small-scale formations to networks and gangs organized in cyberspace operating inter-provincially and transnationally, with very sophisticated tricks.
There is a football betting network formed by the leaders of professional gambling organizations in connection with subjects, bookmakers managing betting websites, with servers located abroad to set up small branches for the soccer betting organization on the cyberspace in Vietnam, with many forms of advertising, attractive public invitations in Vietnamese. Players only need to have devices connected to the Internet, register for a membership account, open a personal account at a bank to be able to participate in betting.
In particular, many players are given gambling accounts and passwords along with a virtual amount of money in advance to bet. If they lose and do not have money to pay, these subjects may use coercive measures to pay such as: illegal detention, extortion of property or hiring criminals to collect debts. This is the cause of many types of crimes, such as: theft, fraud...
From the determination, football betting will cause very serious consequences, affecting security and order in the area. Based on the direction of the Ministry of Public Security, the leaders of the Provincial Police, professional units, police of districts, towns and cities in the province have increased propaganda and dissemination of legal regulations, methods and consequences of gambling to all classes of people. At the same time, review and grasp the situation, apply synchronous professional measures, and resolutely fight against gambling venues and lines that organize gambling and gambling in the form of football betting.
According to the authorities, the fight against and handling of crimes related to football betting shows that the fight against gambling crimes and gambling in the form of online football betting is not without difficulties, because the subjects are often very sophisticated in their methods of operation.
Such as the case that Vinh City Police successfully broke on July 2nd, led by Ho Xuan Hoa. Hoa used the General Agent account to organize an online gambling ring for gamblers in Vinh City, Do Luong and Yen Thanh districts (Nghe An province) and Thanh Hoa, Binh Duong, Ho Chi Minh City and Dong Nai provinces. This was a very professionally organized ring with many tricks to deal with the authorities. Accordingly, Ho Xuan Hoa only attracted and provided betting accounts to acquaintances with good financial conditions. All gambling transactions of the subjects were conducted online via smartphones.
According to the authorities, in order for the projects to be successful, along with the perseverance and hard work of the detectives and investigators, there needs to be the cooperation of many professional forces. From there, we can have enough evidence and physical evidence to force the subjects to admit their actions.
Football betting is also a form of gambling. Pursuant to Article 321 of the 2015 Penal Code, amended and supplemented in 2017, which stipulates the crime of gambling, people who participate in football betting can be prosecuted.
Specifically, the offender may be sentenced to non-custodial reform for up to 03 years or imprisonment from 06 months to 07 years. In addition, the offender may also be fined from 10,000,000 VND to 50,000,000 VND.
Dr., Lawyer Nguyen Trong Hai - Director of Trong Hai and Associates Law Firm
It can be said that cybercrime of football betting has taken full advantage of the development of science and technology, which operates in a complex and increasingly sophisticated manner, but all criminal acts leave traces and will be detected, investigated and strictly handled by the authorities. Therefore, in addition to the recommendations of the authorities, every citizen needs to be fully aware of the good entertainment values of the "king of sports", watch football with a healthy entertainment mentality; do not participate in football betting, organize football betting in any form.
At the same time, pay attention to managing, educating, and mobilizing relatives and people around to raise vigilance and stay away from football betting. In case of detecting suspicious subjects related to football betting, it is necessary to promptly report to the nearest police agency for reception and resolution, contributing to ensuring social order and safety in each locality.
