Vietnam busts $3.8bn crypto gambling scam

Police in Vietnam has busted a massive gambling ring that was operated online and used cryptocurrencies to cover its tracks, according to state-owned broadcaster VTV.

A total of 59 people were apprehended, and police are conducting further investigations.

According to authorities, the gambling ring is estimated to be worth $3.8bn, which includes the money that gamblers staked, “but not reciprocal money from the dealer”.

While Vietnam allows gambling to take place in limited forms, online operations are banned and so is crypto gambling. Vietnam has known about the existence of illegal operations for a while, but this is one of the first times authorities have acted to suspend a large-scale operation.

According to authorities, the gambling ring operated out of several provinces and cities in the country making it harder to track down.

An added challenge stemmed from the fact that the use of crypto usually means that financial authorities couldn’t track transactions. Police explained that players had to procure Ethereum or stablecoin Tether currency before they were allowed to play.

To do that, they used a foreign cryptocurrency exchange named as Remitano in the authorities’ report. Once they had the currency, they could gamble at Nagaclubs.com or Swiftonline.live, two of the publicly revealed names of the suspected gambling websites that operated illegally.

The detained suspects have admitted to participating in the gambling ring and argued they were hosting gambling for partners, which worked as intermediaries to Evolution.com to earn commission.

Evolution was named in a similar controversy a few weeks ago when the company’s name was tied to illegal gambling and lost billions worth of share value.

According to the report, whenever there were enough players online, the suspects would crash the websites and appropriate money from their digital wallets.

The authorities in Ho Chi Minh City have been able to detain 40 laptops, 79 cellphones, ATMs and vehicles worth around $130,000 based on the report.

Fraudulent crypto activities have been rampant across crypto, but this is one of the biggest busts when it comes to crypto gambling. If you want to be safe and keep your crypto turn to websites such as 1xBit, Bitcasino or FortuneJack.

Looking for your next crypto casino? Check out: Mega Dice or FortuneJack

Written by Barney

Co-founder

Barney is co-founder of CryptoGamblingNews.com. When not at work he can usually be found behind a Nikon. He's won numerous international competitions for his photography and volunteers as a content creator for aid organisations in Africa.

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