1,000 billion VND gambling case 'bypassing' credit institutions: What does the State Bank say?

On the afternoon of June 2, at the press conference announcing the "Cashless Day 2025" program, the Director of the State Bank's Payment Department assessed that gambling and money laundering crimes of VND 1,000 billion had bypassed credit institutions due to "substandard security" loopholes.

Specifically, the subjects in the gambling and money laundering ring used artificial intelligence (AI) to create fake biometric videos to bypass the bank's biometric authentication system. This is the first time this method has been recorded in Vietnam.

Mr. Pham Anh Tuan, Director of Payment Department - State Bank. (Photo: Dai Viet)

Mr. Pham Anh Tuan admitted that currently, there is a situation where some applications of payment service providers have not achieved the highest security standards and have not met international standards on eKYC (Electronic Know Your Customer - electronic customer identification and authentication solution).

According to Mr. Tuan, because of poor security, criminals have used AI to bypass payment service providers. The State Bank has obtained specific information from the providers and corrected this “loophole”. However, the information of the organizations is not made public.

“In the future, if the State Bank re-examines payment service providers and these organizations do not meet the standard conditions, they must stop providing services online to avoid being exploited by criminals,” said Mr. Tuan.

According to Mr. Tuan, Circular 50/2024/TT-NHNN of the State Bank has provided a roadmap for payment service providers to ensure international certifications. For example, with the eKYC standard, if the provider's system meets international standards, it will be able to prevent AI and Deepface applications (digitally controlled synthetic media to replace one person's portrait with another).

Mr. Tuan shared that technology crimes are increasing, digital frauds are becoming more and more unpredictable. Therefore, supply organizations also need to invest and strengthen technical systems to fight against criminal organizations using new technology to commit fraud.

“If we use AI for good purposes, criminals can also use AI for their fraudulent purposes. Therefore, this will be a never-ending war. Payment service providers need to pay strong attention to this field,” said Mr. Tuan.

Recently, Thai Binh Provincial Police said that this unit has decided to initiate criminal proceedings, prosecuting 14 defendants for gambling and 7 defendants for money laundering.

Through professional work, Thai Binh Provincial Police identified that KUBET is a website with a server located abroad, on the site there are many betting and gambling games for money through games such as: lottery, football betting, over under...

The police agency determined that the KUBET site with more than 1 million participating accounts, the amount of money that gamblers deposited into gambling accounts on the site from January 2025 to April 2025 was about more than 1,000 billion VND.

The investigation agency discovered an extremely important detail, which is that the subjects used AI to create fake biometric videos, bypassing the bank's biometric authentication system. This is the first time this method has been recorded in Vietnam. This shows the sophistication and complexity of money laundering activities in the digital age.

DAI VIET

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/vu-danh-bac-1-000-ty-dong-qua-mat-to-chuc-tin-dung-ngan-hang-nha-nuoc-noi-gi-ar946639.html