Posting information about a wrong transfer on Facebook, a woman was scammed out of 200 million

Dong Da District Police, Hanoi, has just dismantled a group of 3 people impersonating bank officials to make phone calls.fraud and appropriation of propertyof a woman in the area. Notably, this group of subjects resides in Quang Nam province and has not had any contact with the victim, all of which was done via the internet and phone calls.

Previously, on March 9, the District Police received a report from Ms. T., residing in Lang Ha Ward, Dong Da District, that the previous night she had mistakenly transferred 23 million VND to a strange account via a bank's Mobile Banking application. Wanting to get her money back quickly, she posted an article with photos of information related to her bank account, transaction code, phone number, etc. on social media to ask friends and acquaintances for advice on how to resolve the issue.

She then contacted the bank's customer service center to resolve the issue and about 15 minutes later, a bank employee checked and returned the money she had mistakenly transferred into her account.

The subjects in the case.

The problem is, on the morning of March 9, Ms. T. received another call claiming to be a bank employee, asking her to confirm that she had received the money back to avoid future personnel disputes. Because she thought this was a necessary procedure in the transaction, she trusted and did it. This person said he would send Ms. T. a link to log in, then the system would automatically send an OTP code to her phone. She just needed to read that OTP code for him to check and complete the procedure.

The incident happened so quickly that Ms. T. did not suspect anything and followed the subject's request. It was only when the phone notified her that 200 million VND had just been withdrawn from her bank account that she realized she had been scammed.

Upon receiving the report, the Dong Da District Police General Investigation Team reported to the commander to establish a special project to fight and arrest the perpetrator.

Dong Da District Police took the statement of Truong Huy Cuong - the subject impersonating a bank employee to deceive Ms. T.

Lieutenant Colonel Phan Anh Tu, Head of the General Investigation Team, said that during the crime, the subjects used hundreds of junk SIM cards to avoid detection. However, it is noteworthy that the voice of the impersonator was discovered by the victim to be a Northern accent mixed with a Central accent, so the detectives shifted their search to the provinces of Quang Nam and Da Nang. After 10 days of searching for all clues, the investigators were able to build a portrait of the group of subjects.

On March 27, the Task Force arrested Truong Huy Cuong (born in 1993), residing in Duy Xuyen District, Quang Nam Province, while he was hiding in Da Nang City. On March 29, two more suspects were arrested, Le Minh Hoang (born in 1998), residing in Duy Trung Commune, Duy Xuyen District, Quang Nam Province, and Luu Quoc Toan (born in 1987), residing in Quang Nam Province. This is the group that appropriated Ms. T's property on March 9.

Searching the suspects' residences, the police seized many related exhibits such as mobile phones, hundreds of SIM cards of various types... According to the statement, Hoang was responsible for programming the fake bank website, Cuong went online to find information about the "prey" to call to set a trap and collect money, and Toan would "launder money" if the case was successful. Hoang went online to buy a domain name and set up a website at http://bom.to.TCBank/trasoat.xxx, designing the interface identical to that of Techcombank, with a section for victims to enter their username and password. In addition, Hoang also set up a common email address for the whole group to manage. On March 8, Cuong went on Facebook to search for the keyword "wrong transfer" and found a post by Ms. T. with full personal information, so he pretended to be a bank officer and called the victim.

After Ms. T. provided the information, the subject quickly logged into the account and discovered that there was 700 million VND. The subject placed a transfer order of 200 million VND because this was the maximum transfer transaction limit for the day. As soon as Ms. T. provided the OTP code, this amount was immediately deducted from her account.

With the money, Toan immediately deposited all 200 million VND into a game account with a server located abroad, then converted the virtual money in the game into real money with a 20% transaction fee. Finally, Toan's account received about 160 million VND and divided it equally among the three for personal spending.

Based on the evidence, the Dong Da District Police Investigation Agency has initiated a case, prosecuted the accused, and temporarily detained Truong Huy Cuong, Le Minh Hoang, and Luu Quoc Toan for the act of "Using computer networks, telecommunications networks, and electronic means to commit acts of property appropriation".

It is known that Toan had a previous conviction for illegal drug trafficking; in this case, the subjects connected with each other through many stages but did not gather at one location but committed the crime "online", exchanging via chat or phone. The victim was knowledgeable, had read information in the press about this type of fraud but still fell into the trap of the subjects.

Dong Da District Police warn people to absolutely not provide personal information on social networks, not to provide passwords, accounts, OTP codes to anyone, including bank employees to avoid property appropriation.