Many lottery dens disguised as Nghe An lottery agents

Busting a large gambling ring using lottery recording

(Baonghean.vn) - The subjects only deliver and receive money at a certain time of the day, mainly communicating via text messages or zalo, facebook.

Use billions to gamble

In the gambling world in Vinh City, everyone knows Pham Thi Kim (born in 1972, residing in Vinh Tan Ward, Vinh City). Although she does not have a stable job, Kim lives quite comfortably. After a period of monitoring, Vinh City Police discovered that Kim was running a gambling ring in the form of lottery recording, gathering many participants, operating secretly.

Kim was extremely sophisticated in receiving lottery tickets as well as receiving and transferring cash to agents. Every evening, after the lottery results were out and calculations were done, Kim would delete all lottery-related data stored on her phone, even throwing away the SIM card and replacing it with a new one. On December 27, 2017, secret detectives approached her home and simultaneously arrested Kim and 8 gamblers under her command. The subjects confessed that from the time they started operating until they were arrested, the lottery gambling ring run by Pham Thi Kim had spent nearly 50 billion VND.

Previously, in October 2017, Vinh City Police also successfully dismantled a gambling ring in the form of lottery tickets run by Phan Thi Thanh Giang (born in 1988, residing in Vinh Tan Ward, Vinh City). The investigation agency clarified that in just two days, October 7-8, 2017, the subjects Tran Thi Huong; Hoang Thi Ngan; Nguyen Thi Phuong, Tran Dinh Huong and Tran Thi Dung participated in gambling by transferring lottery tickets to Phan Thi Thanh Giang with a total amount of 725 million VND.

The investigation agency has recovered data from the phones of the above subjects, thereby having enough basis to determine the operation of this line from the end of May 2017 until the time of its destruction, the amount of money they used for gambling totaled more than 30 billion VND.

Lottery gamblers were arrested by Anh Son District Police in October 2017. Photo: Thai Hien

In recent times, the authorities have actively fought and effectively fought against all kinds of gambling evils in the form of lottery numbers. However, this evil is becoming more complicated. Not only in Vinh City, gambling activities in the form of lottery numbers are also flourishing in many localities such as Nghi Loc, Anh Son, Do Luong, Thai Hoa Town, Quy Hop...

According to the police, all of these gambling lines are very professional, all forms of transactions and exchanges are confidential. The subjects only deliver and receive at a single time of the day, mainly via text messages or zalo, facebook.

After this time, all messages will be deleted by the subjects. When participating in gambling, the subjects do not meet each other, only when the lottery results are available will they agree on a location to pay money. The method of the subjects is to use smartphones to transfer lottery messages from the "agents" recording the lottery numbers to the lottery owners. After that, these subjects use software installed on the phone to calculate wins and losses from the results of the Northern lottery opened on the same day and pay each other.

Need to eradicate completely

Lottery activities are based on the form of taking advantage of the results of the State lottery to gamble and organize gambling. No need to buy tickets, write tickets, just play via phone, text message...; the commission and reward levels are higher than the State lottery. This leads to complex social consequences such as black credit, pawning, debt collection, fraud, theft, and even murder.

According to the police, gambling crimes in the form of recording lottery numbers are a hidden crime, not easy to fight and eliminate. When the authorities crack down and take strong action, these subjects remain quiet and vice versa. From the bookie to the player, everyone connects and uses information technology, records the numbers and deletes them immediately afterwards, so the authorities have many difficulties in verifying and collecting evidence.

In Vinh City alone, gambling activities using lottery numbers are the most popular, but detection and arrest are quite limited. In many schools, hospitals or residential areas, lottery players openly record numbers, but inspection, warning and handling are very rare.

Explaining this phenomenon, a police representative said that it is not difficult to arrest gamblers, but they can only be administratively handled and then released. The main gambler must be caught to have a basis for handling and prosecuting, but these subjects rarely appear, so it is not simple to catch them. In addition, many gamblers come from difficult family circumstances, are disabled, or are students, so the handling must also be appropriate.

Quy Hop District People's Court tried 23 defendants for gambling in the form of lottery tickets worth nearly 2.3 billion VND. Photo: Phan Giang

In addition, many lottery ticket agents for Nghe An Lottery Company Limited also participated in betting and gambling. As in the cases recently arrested by the police in Nghi Loc, Quy Hop..., the ringleaders were all agents of the company.

Regarding this issue, Mr. Nguyen Phan Tinh - Director of Nghe An Lottery Company Limited admitted that there is a situation where agents for the state lottery company are actually taking advantage of the situation to record lottery tickets and added that currently in Vinh City, there are about 300 people sitting openly recording lottery tickets, with many old lottery tickets placed on the table to deceive the authorities. And when detecting agents violating the law, the company can only terminate the contract but cannot impose a fine. The company has coordinated with the police to inspect and handle the situation many times, but this situation has not decreased.

Mr. Nguyen Van Duong - Deputy Head of the Corporate Finance Department, Department of Finance said that, in addition to the functional forces, the agents of Nghe An Lottery Company Limited must take the lead in preventing lottery recording. The company needs to review and manage more closely, to avoid the unit's agents taking advantage of disguised lottery activities to record lottery.

Acknowledging this opinion, Mr. Tinh said that the company regularly directs local management officers to inspect to prevent lottery recording, but when they see the officers coming, the agents only sell normal lottery tickets, not lottery recording, so it is difficult to detect and handle. The phenomenon of free lottery recording cannot be completely prevented because the sanctions when these subjects are caught are mainly administrative fines, because of the profit and income, the subjects continue to repeat.

It is known that it is difficult, but the fight against this type of social evil must be carried out resolutely because the consequences for families and society are very great. Therefore, in the coming time, the police force needs to step up attacks and sweeps of hotspots, and eliminate major networks.

In addition to raising awareness for people not to fall into gambling, the Lottery Company must increase inspections of lottery ticket sales agents, especially in Vinh City, in implementing the commitment not to record lottery numbers. The Provincial People's Committee needs to have sanctions to handle the responsibility of the heads of sectors, levels, agencies, and units whose cadres, party members, civil servants, public employees, and workers under their management violate the gambling evil, and the locality allows the complicated gambling evil to occur, causing public outrage.