"Boss" of a trillion-dollar gambling ring in Hanoi gets 5 years in prison, gets 4 luxury cars back

On April 5, after a day of trial, the People's Court of Nam Tu Liem District (Hanoi) sentenced the "boss" of the online gambling ring, Nguyen Minh Thanh (35 years old, residing in Cau Giay District, Hanoi) and 52 accomplices.

Defendant Nguyen Minh Thanh, as the mastermind, leader, and beneficiary, was sentenced to 5 years in prison by the Trial Council for "organizing gambling".

According to the court, the defendants' actions were dangerous, creating bad consequences and social evils. Thanh had a degree in information technology, knew that online gambling games were very effective and that publishers would make a large profit, so he directed a group of accomplices to build and operate the game to make illegal profits.

For the same crime of "organizing gambling", 10 of Thanh's juniors were sentenced from 30 months to 3 years and 6 months in prison. Among them, Vu Tien Duy, who profited 17.8 billion VND, was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months. Tran Duc Cuong, who profited 12 billion VND, was sentenced to 3 years in prison. The remaining 8 defendants were all given sentences equal to their detention time and were released immediately in court.

The defendants are obliged to return all the illegal profits. Of which, Thanh was determined to have received 123 billion VND, and had more than 47 billion VND, 116 taels of gold, 300,000 USD and money in his account confiscated to the state budget.

In addition to the Mercedes G63, the court ordered the remaining 4 luxury cars including Mercedez Benz, Land Rover, Ford Ranger, and Porsche Panamera to be returned to Thanh's family.

The remaining 42 defendants were charged with "gambling", most of whom received suspended sentences.

According to documents and statements of the defendants at the investigation agency and the trial, the Procuracy determined that in 2017, through researching information on the internet, Nguyen Minh Thanh had the idea of ​​building an online gambling software system in the form of card games for rewards, in order to make illegal profits.

At the end of 2019, the defendant bought a source code for a card game online, then discussed with Vu Tien Duy (later hired Bui Nhat Anh), Tran Duc Cuong (later hired Pham Trung Thanh) to participate in writing code (programming) for the card game software and named it SOCVIP.

In which, Thanh is in charge of all areas, Duy and Nhat Anh program the system, Cuong and Thanh program the web interface and mobile applications (iOS and Android). Thanh invited Nguyen Tuan Nghia (36 years old, Ha Giang) to be in charge of managing the payment agents of the card game.

When the SOCVIP card game software was almost completed, Thanh contacted to rent a server abroad for testing. In January 2020, Thanh's group officially put the card game into operation.

During this period, Duy and Nhat Anh were in charge of technical aspects, monitoring operations, fixing errors, and upgrading the game software; Cuong and Pham Trung Thanh were in charge of the interface and card game software on mobile platforms. In addition, Thanh also hired Nguyen Truong Son to advertise on Facebook to attract players to gamble.

The SOCVIP card game operates until February 2021, Thanh changed its name to SUMVIP, and opened a new card game VUACLUB. The card game built by Thanh's group includes many different games such as: Tai Xiu, mini jackpot, crazy birds, Candy...

Authorities determined that from April 1 to August 18, 2021, the total amount of money players deposited into the game via Momo e-wallet, phone scratch cards, Viettel Pay, and agent transfers was more than 1,184 billion VND.

In particular, the investigation agency proved that the amount of money loaded into the game from the telecommunications card loading portal was more than 200 billion VND. After that, Thanh assigned Nguyen Xuan Truong to load these cards into 0-dong SIM cards and then assigned Do Duc Anh to sell them on the market, earning 70%, equivalent to more than 140 billion VND.

In addition, the total amount of money the subjects withdrew through ATMs of the Military Bank (MBank) was 26.5 billion VND. The total amount of money the gambling organizers benefited from was more than 167 billion VND.