Sentencing of the 'female monster' who led the gambling and lottery ring

On August 8, Nghe An Provincial People's Court opened an appeal trial of Nguyen Thi Oanh (42 years old) and Nguyen Thi Hoa (52 years old), both residing in Hoang Mai ward, Nghe An, for the crime ofGamble.

The leader of this gambling and lottery number recording ring is Nguyen Thi Oanh. It is worth mentioning that this subject has been administratively punished twice for gambling and lottery.

To bypass the authorities, Oanh created a tight network of "henchmen", operating in many locations and only receiving lottery tickets via social networks Zalo, Facebook, and text messages.

On July 9 and 10, 2024, Nguyen Thi Oanh and a number of other people, including Nguyen Thi Hoa, participated in gambling by playing cards and buying and selling lottery tickets.

With the form of lottery numbers, the total amount of money Oanh gambled with the subjects was more than 180 million. Of which, gambling with Hoa was nearly 70 million. With the form of card gambling, the investigation agency determined the amount of money the subjects had was more than 7 million VND.

The Court of First Instance then sentenced defendant Nguyen Thi Oanh to 3 years and 3 months in prison and defendant Nguyen Thi Hoa to 12 months in prison for gambling. The two defendants later appealed, asking for a reduced sentence and were given a suspended sentence.

At the appeal hearing, the defendants maintained their appeal. In explaining the reasons for requesting a reduced sentence, defendant Oanh stated that she was disabled, had turned herself in after committing the crime, her family had contributed to the revolution, she had participated in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, supported floods, and supported the construction of solidarity houses in 2024. During her work at the kindergarten, the defendant was awarded.

Defendant Hoa presented difficult family circumstances, her husband passed away, her eldest child is in drug rehabilitation, the defendant has paid the amount of money that was recovered to ask the court to consider reducing the sentence.

The appellate court determined that Nguyen Thi Oanh was the ringleader in this case and had committed the crime multiple times. However, the defendant is disabled, and at this trial, a number of new circumstances were presented that needed to be considered and applied to demonstrate the leniency of the law. Therefore, the court partially accepted the defendant’s appeal and sentenced Oanh to 3 years in prison.

Defendant Nguyen Thi Hoa has a good personal history and a clear place of residence, so there is no need to isolate her from society. Therefore, the court sentenced her to 12 months in prison, suspended.