Phan Sao Nam and 21 others asked to be absent from the appeal hearing.

On the morning of March 5, at the opening session of the appeal hearing of the online gambling case worth tens of thousands of billions of VND opened by the High People's Court in Hanoi at the headquarters of the People's Court of Phu Tho province, defendants Nguyen Van Duong (former chairman of CNC), Phan Sao Nam (former chairman of VTC online company) and 20 others submitted applications for absence.

Nam and Duong were not among the 36 defendants who appealed for a lighter sentence, suspended sentence, or a fine instead of imprisonment, but their names were on the list of defendants summoned to court because of their involvement in the appeal of the People's Procuracy. Among the defendants present, only Nguyen Quoc Tuan (former director of CNC) withdrew his appeal, however, Tuan's actions are still in the appeal.

The representative of the People's Procuracy said that if the 22 absent people need to be summoned during the interrogation, they will be called to court at any time. The same goes for the other defendants in the case, even if they have not appealed or protested.

At 11:30 a.m. the court adjourned. The panel of judges will continue with the announcement of the first instance verdict at 1:30 p.m.

According to the appeal, the People's Procuracy requested the High People's Court in Hanoi to review the case in the direction of not applying the aggravating circumstance of "organized crime" to the defendants who committed the crime.Gambling organizationin the category of first-level agents or higher; request the appellate court to apply mitigating circumstances to criminal liability for defendants who have remedied half or more of the illegal profits, including Nam and Duong.

The first instance verdict on November 30, 2018 determined that Duong knew that CNC had the advantage of being a front company for the police, so he agreed to cooperate in organizing an online gambling network. Accordingly, VTC Online, run by Nam, was responsible for providing software services for gambling games. Duong directed the renting of domain names, connecting intermediary payment gateways, and preparing the necessary premises to operate the game.

The verdict emphasized that Duong played the most important role, being the person who connected the protection of former Director General of the General Department of Police Phan Van Vinh and former Director of C50 Nguyen Thanh Hoa.

After 27 months of operation, the line has attracted nearly 43,000 accounts to register for online gambling, with a total illegal profit of more than VND9,850 billion. Of this, Duong benefited VND1,700 billion and has only returned about VND240 billion.

The second most important role is played by Phan Sao Nam. Nam has a high level of knowledge, but due to his lack of knowledge, he has led many people into legal trouble. The former chairman of VTC Online is recorded to have actively paid more than 1,000 billion VND of illegal profits with his family, reaching more than 90%.

According to the first instance verdict, former General Director Phan Van Vinh was sentenced to 9 years in prison, and former Director Nguyen Thanh Hoa was sentenced to 10 years in prison, both for the crime.Abuse of power while performing official duties.

Nguyen Van Duong and Phan Sao Nam were sentenced to 10 and 5 years in prison respectively for two crimes.Gambling organization, Money laundering. The four defendants above did not appeal.

The remaining 88 defendants received the lowest penalty of 40 million VND and the highest of 3 years and 6 months in prison for the following crimes:Money laundering, Illegal trading of invoices, Organizing gambling, Gambling, Using the internet to appropriate property.