Interprovincial gambling ring busted, transaction amount over 6,000 billion VND

During the investigation, the authorities determined that this ring has been operating since the beginning of 2023 with very sophisticated and closed methods. The leader is Pham Dang M (born in 1989, residing in Hanoi). Through the social network Facebook, M got to know many subjects in provinces and cities such as: Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong, Hung Yen, Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Tien Giang, Dong Nai... The subjects discussed and agreed to assign tasks to carry out fraudulent acts in the form of intermediary buying and selling and supporting bank loans.

In the form of buying and selling fraud, the subjects go online and on social networks, then join groups and associations for buying and selling goods, contacting sellers and buyers. With the motto "buy no matter how expensive and sell no matter how cheap", the subjects target the psychology of buyers who love cheap things to trick buyers into transferring money to the subjects. After receiving the money, the subjects delete their social network accounts, cut off contact with the buyers to appropriate the money.

For the form of loan support fraud, the subjects create Facebook accounts, create Fanpages named "National Loan Support", post loan articles on Fanpages, run ads for these articles so that many people know, contact the subjects to do loan procedures.

When a customer contacts them, the subjects will agree and advise them on loan packages with amounts ranging from 50 million VND to 100 million VND. The loan application requires the customer to have a citizen identification card, phone number, and the borrower's account number. When the customer agrees to borrow money, depending on the loan package, the subjects will require the customer to deposit an amount ranging from 800 thousand VND to 2 million VND.

In both forms of fraud, the subjects ask the victims to transfer money to gambling accounts on online gambling websites. With sophisticated tricks, the subjects "launder money" by creating gambling accounts and participating in the game of shaking the dice on the website with a small amount of money. The subjects will resell virtual currency points to the gambling website to exchange for Vietnamese Dong, then transfer the money to the bank account number rented by the subjects online to avoid being traced by the police.

Initially, the Police Investigation Agency identified the subjects who committed fraud and property appropriation against more than 1,000 victims (in localities nationwide) with the amount of money defrauded in the group's accounts being nearly 60 billion VND. The subjects who organized gambling and gambled had a very large amount of transaction money of up to more than 6,000 billion VND.

During the arrest and search, the Investigation Police Agency seized 58 mobile phones and 182 SIM cards of various types; 4 laptops and 246 bank accounts. The authorities also seized and blocked more than 5 billion VND in cash and money in bank accounts; more than 10,000 pages of documents related to fraud and gambling activities, and many Modem devices connecting to the internet and broadcasting 4G.

Hung Yen Provincial Police are expanding the investigation into the case to handle it according to the provisions of law.