On July 1, according to the police in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, a major online gambling case was cracked, and a foreign national was arrested. His gambling syndicate had a daily turnover exceeding 20 billion Vietnamese dong and was suspected of illegally transporting currency out of the country.
Investigations revealed that the gambling activities were mainly conducted through 8 websites on social networks, involving betting on lotteries, football, online card games, and shooting fish, among other forms. At peak times, these websites attracted hundreds of thousands of online players, with daily turnovers reaching hundreds of billions of Vietnamese dong.
The police discovered that the servers for these websites were located in the USA, operated by personnel abroad, using a multi-level agent system to manage player accounts. Payment methods included bank accounts, electronic wallets, and virtual currencies, allowing players to easily deposit and withdraw gambling funds.
Through data analysis and information gathering, the police traced several bank accounts used for transfers, finding a large amount of funds transferred to an account belonging to Shen Chia Chi (born in 1980, Chinese nationality). Shen Chia Chi was urgently arrested in early June 2024 after entering Vietnam. It is reported that he opened 6 bank accounts in Vietnam, each with a daily fund flow of 20 billion Vietnamese dong.
The investigation also showed that a total of 875 billion Vietnamese dong was transferred to Shen Chia Chi's 6 bank accounts from illegal payment intermediaries. These funds were used to purchase virtual currencies and illegally transferred out of Vietnam.
According to Shen Chia Chi, he profited 5 billion Vietnamese dong, using 3 billion to purchase an apartment in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Currently, the Quang Nam provincial police have initiated an investigation and issued a temporary detention order for Shen Chia Chi on charges of "illegal transportation of currency out of the country." The Minister of Public Security of Vietnam, Lương Tam Quang, also praised the role of the Quang Nam Provincial Police and the Department of Cyber Security and Crime Prevention in this case.
