Warning about scams through opening bank accounts

Use fake documents to open a real account

On September 12, 2024, the People's Court of Nghe An province opened a trial of the defendants Nguyen Tat Thang (born in 1988), Nguyen Van Tuan (born in 1990), both residing in Tam Quang commune, Tuong Duong district (Nghe An); Phung Anh Tuan (born in 1990), Le Van Thang (born in 2000), both residing in Thua Thien Hue province; Nguyen Minh Ha (born in 1992, residing in Bac Ninh province); Hoang Thai Bao (born in 1996, residing in Thai Nguyen province), Pham Do Anh Tuan (born in 1988, residing in Gia Lai province), La Xuan Thien (born in 1997, residing in Thanh Hoa province), for the crimes of: Fraudulent appropriation of property; Forgery of documents of agencies and organizations; Use of forged documents of agencies and organizations; Illegal trading of information about bank accounts.

According to the indictment of the authorities, because he wanted to have money to spend, from the beginning of 2023 to December 2023, Nguyen Tat Thang hired Nguyen Minh Ha to fake 31 citizen identification cards to open 117 bank accounts. Then, Nguyen Tat Thang hired Le Van Thang to use the referral code from the bank account that Thang was using and then used the vouchers - promotional programs to receive bonuses received to pay for electricity and water bills, illegally profiting more than 17 million VND.

In addition, Nguyen Tat Thang also hired Nguyen Van Tuan and Phung Anh Tuan to forge thousands of fake citizen identification cards and use them to open thousands of bank accounts, then resell them to many different subjects.

At the trial, based on the indictment and considering the role of each defendant, the panel sentenced Nguyen Tat Thang to 10 years in prison for the crimes of: Fraudulent appropriation of property; Forgery of documents of agencies and organizations; Use of forged documents of agencies and organizations; Illegal trading of information about bank accounts.

Defendants Nguyen Van Tuan, Nguyen Minh Ha and Phung Anh Tuan were sentenced to 40 and 39 months in prison respectively for "Forgery of documents of agencies and organizations".

The defendants Hoang Thai Bao; Pham Do Anh Tuan; La Xuan Thien were sentenced to 39 to 24 months in prison for "Illegal trading of bank account information"; Le Van Thang was sentenced to 6 months in prison but given a suspended sentence for "Fraudulent appropriation of property".

Not only the above-mentioned group, previously, on July 3, 2023, the Criminal Police Department, Nghe An Provincial Police received a report from a bank with a branch in Vinh City about a group of subjects using high technology to appropriate a huge amount of money. After investigation, the authorities arrested Nguyen The Tuan (born in 1989, residing in Hong Linh Town, Ha Tinh) and Vo Trong Huy (born in 1988, residing in Duc Tho District, Ha Tinh). According to the investigation results, from May 2023 to July 2023, Tuan and Huy used many fake ID cards to go to bank offices in Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Thanh Hoa... to create fake bank accounts.

After opening bank accounts from fake ID cards, the subjects sold the information, including login passwords and OTP codes, to another subject with a Telegram account named "HN" for a price of 1,000,000 - 1,500,000 VND/account. Subject "HN" then used tricks to hack into bank accounts to appropriate nearly 2 billion VND.

Impersonation to open a payment account

Mr. N.D.T (living in Vinh City) shared that recently the phone number he used to receive messages from the bank suddenly received a notification that he had successfully opened a payment account. Although in reality, Mr. T. did not go to the transaction counter or perform any transaction to open a payment account online, because he already had an account used to pay salary and make transactions up to now.

Noticing the above abnormality, Mr. T. then directly contacted the bank to request an inspection and clarification.

After a short time, Mr. T. received a response from the bank, stating that someone in Dak Nong province had used his information to open a payment account. After reporting the incident, the fake account was locked.

According to warnings from authorities, currently, subjects using IT to commit fraud in cyberspace are becoming more and more sophisticated, especially in the banking sector. Some typical tricks include texting and calling people's phone numbers to request upgrading their SIM from 3G to 4G or 5G to improve the quality of Internet access, then taking control of the user's SIM, redirecting all calls and OTP messages to the subject's phone number, creating favorable conditions to appropriate money in the victim's bank account or e-wallet.

Some subjects also use text messages and phone calls to ask people to standardize their VneID electronic accounts, so that people can provide their citizen identification information and then use that to open bank payment accounts to carry out many interbank money transfer transactions, especially using that account as a place to transfer money for scammers...

To improve the effectiveness of management of the opening and use of payment accounts, on June 28, 2024, the State Bank of Vietnam issued Circular 17/2024/TT-NHNN regulating the opening and use of payment accounts (TKTT) at payment service providers, to guide the opening and use of payment accounts in accordance with newly issued legal documents (2023 Law on Identification, 2022 Law on Anti-Money Laundering...).

According to this circular, opening a payment account will be tightened, when individuals open a payment account, they are required to provide identification documents such as: Identity card; Electronic identity card (through accessing the level 2 electronic identification account), for Vietnamese citizens; Identity certificate for people of Vietnamese origin whose nationality has not been determined...

In addition, opening a payment account electronically requires matching the biometric information of the payment account holder...

However, according to warnings from authorities, people also need toRaise your own vigilance, especially strictly control the opening and registration of bank account services. Absolutely do not lend or post your citizen identification card or identity card on social networks, do not buy, sell or use bank accounts advertised on social networks... to avoid bad guys taking advantage of personal information to commit crimes...

People also need to be vigilant against calls from strange phone numbers, or from messages or emails asking to scan QR codes. Absolutely do not click on links of unknown origin received via messages/emails. Do not register an account/electronic identification for others. Otherwise, you may very well become an unwilling "link" in a scam ring without even knowing it.