Report: Vietnam Busts Porn Site Operation, Arrests Four

VIETNAM—News reports out of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam indicate that authorities last week broke up what is being called a "large ring" of criminals who reportedly prospered from the operation of a popular file-sharing porn site that leased a large number of overseas servers. According to tuoitrenews.vn, "The ring hired more than 500 servers that are located abroad, mainly in France and the Netherlands, Thanh Nien newspaper quoted Colonel Pham Van Duc, deputy director of the provincial police, as saying on Saturday. "These people traded in a large volume of porn movies on the website at Ryushare.com for a long time and gained a large illicit profit before their arrest," the site reported police as saying. Under Article 253 of the Penal Code, four people ranging in age from 26 to 31 were arrested and charged with indicted for “distributing debauched cultural products." Investigators said the site, Ryushare.com, which began operation in March 2012, reaped profits of over $6 million (VND132 billion) in just one year. "According to the case file," added  tuoitrenews.vn, "through a tip-off, local anti-social crime police in mid-2013 began to follow the activities of Hieu, a man from the province’s Phu Vang District, who had no stable job but suddenly became rich. "After several investigations," it continued, "police discovered that Hieu uploaded banned porn movies to Ryushare.com. They also tracked down Hieu’s relations with Nhat, residing in the southern province of Binh Duong." Despite the fact that police are continuing to investigate the site, and are reportedly even expanding their investigation, a lot of details about its operations have already been made public. For instance, according to the local news site, "Nhat paid about VND4 billion ($189,600) per month for the rental of these servers.  "On July 27, 2012," it adds, "Nhat established Nguyen Duc Nhat One-Member Co Ltd and then signed a business contract with OnePay Online Trade and Service Joint Stock Company, located in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem District. "Under the contract," it goes on, "Nhat’s company authorized OnePay to collect payments for transactions in association with Ryushare.com and transferred them to Nhat’s account at Vietcombank’s Binh Duong Province branch. "After porn movies were made available online," it continues, "the website’s members would create links and post them on some social networks, forums and blogs, both at home and abroad. "Sixty percent of the sex website’s revenue would be paid to its existing members who had introduced new users to the site, 35 percent to Nhat, and the remaining five percent to Onepay," the site concludes, adding as a last measure, "According to the statistics of the investigation agency, Ryushare.com had over 800,000 members, including 80,000 VIP ones who subscribed to it at 9.96 Euros per month, 34.96 Euros per quarter, and 59.96 Euros per year." Simple math to then figure out that the site was taking in a tad more than $6 million. However, the news site does not indicate what sort of punishment the four individuals are facing, nor does it say if VIP members of the site, which "comprised many civil servants in Thua Thien-Hue Province," will also face retribution by the state for having accessed the forbidden porn.