Hanoi (VNA) – Public opinion have expressed shock and anger after thediscovery of a major online gambling ring with the involvement of some personswho used to be high-ranking officers of the people’s public security force.

Amongthose who were arrested in relation to the case, there were former Director General of the Police GeneralDepartment - former Lieutenant General Phan Van Vinh; and former Directorof the MoPS’s Police Department for Hi-tech Crime Prevention - former MajorGeneral Nguyen Thanh Hoa.

Those officersshould have carried out their tasks and responsibility as assigned by theParty, the State and the people, which are to fight crimes and law violations.Instead, they used their power and position to cover up for criminals and gainprofits from illegal act of using the internet for gambling organisation and moneylaundering.

There may be variouscauses for the degradation and corruption of a person or a member of the people’spublic security force. But after all, the major cause is the negligence of self-disciplineand self-training, resulting in faded revolutionary ideal and disregard for law.

The line betweenlight and darkness, between good and evil, and between a representative of justiceand a criminal is very slim. In an environment full of temptations, if onerelaxes self-discipline and fails to maintain integrity, it is very easy to fallto temptation, thus covering up for, and more seriously, lending a hand to illegalacts. The more important position such persons are in, the more seriousconsequences that their degradation causes to society.

The revelation ofthe gambling case serves as a sad and costly lesson for the people’s publicsecurity force. When investigating the case, the force demonstrates a resolveto clean up its apparatus and remove those who no longer deserve to be membersof the revolutionary public security force.

The crackdown on thecase also shows the determination of the Communist Party of Vietnam and theState in preventing and fighting all manifestations of degradation of politicalideology, morality and lifestyle, as well as of “self evolution” and “self transformation”within the Party, towards strengthening discipline and law.

According to theMinistry of Public Security, the online gambling ring, which used the websites rikvip.com and rikvip.vn, had attracted nearly 43million accounts. It was considered to be a disguised gambling system with thelargest scale and revenue in Vietnam. Total money paid via legal and illegalpayment gateways since 2015 was estimated to exceed 9.58 trillion VND (around422 million USD).

So far nearly 90 persons have been prosecuted andarrested for their involvement in the case.-VNA