Vietnam police and law enforcement authorities have confirmed the end of a significant operation to shut down a billion-dollar money laundering ring, closely linked to online gambling activity.
The sophisticated underground operation ran from 2022 to 2024, comprising 187 fictitious companies holding 600 corporate bank accounts to funnel the proceeds of crime.
Bank employees were embroiled in the large-scale enterprise, with various fake IDs and other supposedly legitimate registrations forged to keep the operation running. The bank accounts were used to wash vast sums of cash that originated from offshore gambling and other fraudulent sources.
Police in the coastal city of Da Nang described the sting as the biggest money laundering case they have ever dealt with.
On Thursday (Jan. 23), police made five arrests after VND30 billion ($1.2b) of dark money had made its way into Vietnam as part of the wider laundering scam.
This fresh police enforcement follows another bust of an illicit sports betting enterprise that was accruing millions, days earlier.
Police in Vietnam confirmed they had uncovered a vast online gambling operation worth millions, run by known underworld figure Tran Trung Hieu, also known as Hieu De.
The gambling ring, focused on major international soccer, was described as “professional, complex, and executed using sophisticated methods”, according to a local news outlet.
Moves to allow legalized sports betting
Online gambling is rife in Vietnam, where the activity is illegal.
This creates vast scope for illegal betting sites with the black market said to be worth more than VND250 trillion ($9.96b, spurred on by the insatiable appetite to bet on soccer.
Police officers captured Hieu De and 15 others, with the confiscation of more than VND1.1b (around $40m) in cash.
As part of moves to combat illegal betting, the Vietnamese government has opened the door for the introduction of approved sports betting, but this will only be permitted in land-based casinos.
Last year, the country’s National Assembly Standing Committee set a deadline for legislators to amend Decree 6 in 2025.
Decree 6 was a bill introduced in 2017 to pave the way for restricted forms of legal sports betting, but the rollout has proven to be protracted and prohibitive, including limits on how much can be staked and restricted to 20 of the 58 provinces in Vietnam.
One expert described the situation around the introduction of a legal sports betting market as a “regulated sector without the willingness to manage it”.
Image credit: Via Midjourney