Warning of online investment and business fraud 'traps'

From victim to fraudster
At the end of August 2023, Vo Thi Tuyet (born in 1990), residing in Bao Thanh commune, Yen Thanh district, began participating in the "mission" of investing in online sales. At first, Tuyet was also careful and cautious when only putting down a few million VND as a deposit to receive the goods. "I only spent 5 million VND in the first month, but after nearly 1 month of performing the task, I had an income of more than 15 million VND," Tuyet said. After participating for more than 1 month, seeing the high profits and thinking that she had economic knowledge, this woman decided to invest more than 3 billion VND in performing the "mission" online in the hope of earning a larger profit.
However, after Vo Thi Tuyet transferred a huge amount of money, the system crashed and all means of communication with the subjects were blocked. Only then did Tuyet come to her senses and realize that she was only the “prey” and not the “hunter”. This woman regretted it, but it was too late.

It is worth mentioning that in order to have more than 3 billion VND to "invest" online, taking advantage of her current job position and the trust of the people, Vo Thi Tuyet lied to the victim that many people needed to borrow money to "reverse the contract" because their loan was about to reach the deadline, and that she would return the money after disbursement. After the victim trusted her and transferred the money, Tuyet used her family's loan contract to perform the procedure to reverse the contract many times within 2 days. After the bank disbursed the money, Tuyet used the money to pay off the debt, continued to invest in online sales and personal expenses without returning it to the victim as promised. With the above tricks, Tuyet defrauded and appropriated a total of more than 2.5 billion VND from the victim.
Similarly, Tran Thi Soa (born in 1985), residing in Tien Thanh commune, Yen Thanh district, used to only do work related to "spirituality". In May 2023, Soa began to "invade" stock investment. Although Soa lost tens of millions of dong during the investment process and many people advised Soa to focus only on her "professional" work, "because money blinded her", Soa ignored all the advice, "burning" all her savings over the years into investing in virtual currency.

In order to have money to “recover” and continue “investing”, Tran Thi Soa came up with the idea of ​​taking advantage of the trust of a relative and defrauding 1.63 billion VND. However, this woman continued to lose all of her money and had all communication blocked by the “investment” system.

Talking about her mistake, Tran Thi Soa expressed regret: “Because I believed in the advertisements for making quick money through investment on social networks, I participated. At first, I got a few “wins” so I thought it would be easy to make a profit, so I rushed into investing and ended up losing all my assets. After that, with the thought of continuing to “invest” to get the money back, I defrauded and appropriated the assets of the victims. Now, the price to pay is too high: losing money, losing my job, being away from my family, and getting into trouble with the law.”
Be cautious with investment and business invitations.
Recently, although the authorities have issued many warnings about fraudulent tricks, luring players to do business on the internet and social networks, because of greed, many people still blindly invest. Even to have money to continue doing business online, some people have turned themselves from victims to fraudsters who appropriate property, and when they look back, it is too late, as in the cases of Vo Thi Tuyet and Tran Thi Soa mentioned above.

In just a few days in early November 2023, the Criminal Police Department, Nghe An Police, consecutively arrested 3 cases of fraud and property appropriation. The common point of the above cases is that before committing the crime, the subjects were all victims who had lost billions of dong due to investing in business on social networks, so they "got desperate and took risks".
According to Lieutenant Colonel Ha Huy Duc - Captain of Team 2, Criminal Police Department, Provincial Police, said: "The common point of the above cases is that the defendants are victims of scams on social networks. After being scammed of a large amount of money, they are in financial trouble, to have money to transfer to the scammers, these defendants turn to scams in reality. From being victims, they turn themselves into criminals and get caught up in the law."

Faced with the above situation, the Criminal Police Department, Nghe An Provincial Police recommends that people must be extremely cautious with financial investment activities, stock investment, virtual currency investment and other types of investment on social networks. Because, if not vigilant, it will be easy for subjects on social networks to manipulate their psychology, using different methods and tricks, they lure victims to gradually "fall into the trap" to defraud and appropriate property.

Victims are often caught up in the investment cycle until they lose all their assets, then they wake up and regret, but it is too late. Many lessons have been learned, and authorities have continuously issued many warnings. Therefore, everyone must be vigilant, improve their legal knowledge and information technology skills to avoid being scammed, not invest in areas they do not understand, especially not "fall into the trap" because of their own greed leading to "losing money and getting sick".