Vietnam police raid 30 betting rings during World Cup
HANOI - Vietnamese police have raided 30 illegal football betting rings during the World Cup and arrested about 100 people, a report in the state-controlled media said Thursday.
Police involved in the crackdown in southern Ho Chi Minh City said they had seized funds worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Thanh Nien (Youth Daily) newspaper said in its online edition. Among the syndicates were three rings with overseas links that ran gambling networks on the Internet with bets worth an estimated 500,000 dollars, police were quoted as saying.
The report said police had arrested the three ring leaders, identified as Nguyen Thi Duyen, 52, Truong Minh Hai, 49, and Nguyen Hung Binh, 36. Police confirmed to AFP that three major networks had been broken up but refused to confirm the report’s other details and the number of arrests. Football gambling is illegal but widespread in the communist nation. Most major syndicates bet on foreign matches, but the domestic V-League has also been marred by allegations of corruption and match-fixing since its debut 2000-2001 season.
Agence France Presse - June 30, 2006
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