Many lottery dens disguised as Nghe An lottery agents

Busting a large gambling ring using lottery recording

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

Use billions of dong 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 discreetly.

Kim was extremely sophisticated in receiving lottery cables as well as receiving and transferring cash to agents. Every evening, after the lottery results and calculations were done, Kim deleted all lottery-related data stored in her phone, even threw away the SIM card and replaced it with a new one. On December 27, 2017, secret reconnaissance teams approached her private home and simultaneously arrested Kim and 8 gamblers under her command. The subjects confessed that from the time of operation until their arrest, the lottery gambling ring run by Pham Thi Kim had used 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 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. 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 Northern lottery results 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's lottery to gamble and organize gambling. No need to buy tickets, write tickets, just play by 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 stay quiet and vice versa. From the bookie to the player, everyone connects and uses information technology, and after recording the numbers, they delete them immediately, so the authorities have many difficulties in verifying and collecting evidence.

In Vinh City alone, gambling activities by recording numbers are the most popular, but detection and arrest are quite limited. In many school areas, hospitals or residential areas, people recording numbers openly record numbers, but inspection, warning and handling are very rare.

Explaining this phenomenon, the police representative said that arresting the gamblers is not difficult but can only be handled administratively and then released, the main boss must be caught to have a basis for handling and prosecution, but these subjects rarely appear so it is not simple to catch the subject. Besides, many gamblers have difficult family circumstances, are disabled, 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 numbers and added that currently in Vinh City there are about 300 people sitting openly recording lottery numbers, 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 improved.

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 serious. Therefore, in the coming time, the police force needs to step up attacks and sweeps of hotspots, and eliminate large networks.

In addition to raising awareness for people not to fall into gambling, the Lottery Company must strengthen inspection 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, units whose cadres, party members, civil servants, public employees, and workers under their management violate related to gambling, and localities that allow complicated gambling situations to occur, causing resentment among the people.