Gang arrested for stealing 35 billion VND from 'electronic wallet'

According to Lieutenant Colonel Lai Quang Huan, Deputy Head of Department 6 - Department of Investigation Police on Social Order Crimes - Ministry of Public Security, from the work of reviewing and grasping the situation in the area, at the end of May 2020, detectives discovered signs of a criminal gang using many new methods and tricks to rob property, so they deployed professional measures to monitor.

After nearly a week of tracking and compiling documents on the activities of this gang, and at the same time, the unit also received reports of crimes from the masses, so Major General - Director Tran Ngoc Ha reported to the leaders of the Ministry of Public Security to propose establishing a special project to combat and destroy the gang.

Continuing to consolidate the criminal records, on June 18, the authorities executed an emergency arrest warrant for the following subjects: Ho Ngoc Tai, born in 1989, residing in Thanh Ke district; Tran Ngoc Hoang, born in 1983, residing in Hai Chau district, Da Nang city; Nguyen Van Duc, born in 1996, residing in Dak Lak province; Mai Xuan Phot, born in 1992 in Quang Nam province; Trinh Tuan Anh, born in 1985, Bui Quang Trung, born in 1996, Truong Chi Hai, born in 1989, all residing in Ho Chi Minh city.

According to the initial statements of the subjects, because they had previously participated in cryptocurrency trading activities but suffered continuous losses and were angry because their large assets had disappeared, the subjects rushed to find the cause, but after searching for a long time, they could not find anything.

At this time, another businessman named K in Ho Chi Minh City was also trading in cryptocurrency and was continuously successful, so the subjects thought that Mr. K was the cause of their failure and the whole group agreed to find a way to kidnap Mr. K to get their money back.

In mid-May 2020, knowing that Mr. K, his wife and young child were traveling in Da Lat City, Lam Dong Province, the group met and assigned each step to each subject to carry out the kidnapping of Mr. K. After discussing, the subjects brought pistols, syringes, hired more gangsters and used 3 cars to drive straight to a hotel in Da Lat City where Mr. K's family was renting a room to find an opportunity to act, but because they realized that there were many people here, making the possibility of being exposed quite high, the group decided to continue monitoring.

On the morning of May 18, when they saw Mr. K's car leaving the hotel, the gang secretly followed him and reached the section of the Ho Chi Minh City - Long Thanh - Dau Day highway near the toll station in Long Thanh district, Dong Nai province. Seeing that there was no traffic, the gang decided to take action.

To force Mr. K's car to stop, they rammed their car into the back of Mr. K's car, causing an accident. When Mr. K's car stopped, the gang rushed to block the front and rear, separating Mr. K and his wife and children into two different cars, blindfolded them, and tortured them to force them to provide their cryptocurrency wallet codes.

When Mr. K resisted, they held a gun to his head, then used a syringe with blood that they said was HIV-infected blood to threaten to inject into Mr. K's wife and children. After more than 2 hours of torture, unable to bear it, Mr. K agreed to provide the password for his wallet. After forcing Mr. K to provide the password, they broke the dash cam in the car and stole the mobile phones of Mr. K and his wife to destroy the evidence to avoid being discovered.

According to initial figures, the amount of money that Tai, Hoang, Duc, Tuan Anh, Chung, Phot, and Hai robbed from Mr. K was over 35 billion VND. They paid the gangsters and detectives over 1 billion VND, and divided the rest to spend.

The case is currently under further investigation by the police.