$90-million online gambling ring busted in Hanoi

According to police, Dao Minh Sang, 38, who ran the ring, established the three online platforms of SFX Capital, SFX, and F.C.I and hired Nguyen Xuan Hung and Nguyen Minh Duc to operate them.

The ring was busted on May 30.

Police summoned 32 people and seized five Cadillac, Range Rover, BMW, Lexus and Mercedes vehicles, the Ministry of Public Security announced Friday.

According to investigations, players must create an account on the SFX Capitals website.

The SFX Capital floor will provide exchange rates of 16 major forex pairs including U.S. dollar/euro, pound/U.S. dollar, U.S. dollar/JPY, U.S. dollar/CHF, AUD/U.S. dollar, and euro/pound, and pairs of digital currencies like bitcoin/U.S. dollar.

Gamblers will then choose the foreign or digital currencies to bet on in a certain period, normally set at 30 seconds, or three, five, 15, and 30 minutes.

If winning, players would receive a sum equal to the bet after deducting the floor fee of 5-10 percent of the bet. If losing, they would lose all.

Police said at the time they busted the ring, it had 18,000 accounts and a total amount of $90 million in gambling transactions.

To entice players, the ring provided many agents, and established “expert groups” to support players.

Those “experts” would assist players to place the bet and promise to help them win in an hour if following instructions correctly.

In order to gain the trust of players, the team often promoted their images on social networks by displaying wealth, expensive cars, and high-class lifestyles.

According to police, the ring is essentially an act of organizing gambling and gambling in cyberspace to appropriate participants’ money.

Online gambling is illegal in Vietnam.

There are a handful of licensed casinos in the country, but only foreign passport holders are allowed to gamble there. Only two casinos, one in the southern island of Phu Quoc and the other in Van Don in the northern province of Quang Ninh, may admit Vietnamese.