Impersonating the city's police chief to commit fraud.
Duong Van An created a fake Zalo account impersonating the Chief of Police of Bao Loc City (Lam Dong province) to send threatening messages to victims, demanding they transfer money to a bank account in order to steal their assets.
According to the initial investigation, on December 1st, Duong Van An created two Zalo accounts and then befriended and messaged Ms. KTTT (residing in Bao Loc City). In one Zalo account, An introduced himself as Quan, who had recently returned to Bao Loc City from Canada. In the other account, An introduced himself as Quynh (Quan's sister), who was living in France. After getting acquainted with Ms. T, An used the Zalo account.impersonationQuynh messaged Ms. T saying she wanted to transfer $1,500 to Quan and asked for Ms. T's help.
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| Duong Van An was arrested by the Bao Loc City Police for investigation into the crime of fraud and appropriation of property. |
During the same period, An used a Zalo account named Quan to ask Ms. T to transfer money multiple times, totaling 6 million VND, to two bank accounts under the names "Nguyen Van Luyen" and "Doan Thi Phuong" to open stock trading accounts. Following this, An used the same Zalo account to message Ms. T, claiming he was being arrested by the Bao Loc City Police and demanding she transfer 3 million VND to the bank account under the name "Doan Thi Phuong," threatening fraud and misappropriation of property if she refused. Due to fear and lack of understanding, Ms. T complied with An's demands.
Seeing how "easy" it was, Duong Van An continued to impersonate Colonel Phung Tat Thanh, Chief of Police of Bao Loc City, to deceive and threaten victims into transferring more money to him.
On December 13th, the suspect created a Zalo account under the name "Phung Tat Thanh" and messaged Ms. T, introducing himself as the Chief of Police of Bao Loc City, while simultaneously threatening her with accusations that she was covering up crimes. An then demanded that Ms. T transfer money to bank accounts under the names "Nguyen Van Luyen" and "Doan Thi Phuong." Due to fear and lack of understanding, Ms. T transferred a total of 11.6 million VND to these two accounts. To further defraud the victim, Duong Van An created a Zalo account under the name "Lam Dong Provincial Inspectorate" and continued to threaten Ms. T, demanding three more transfers totaling 6 million VND to bank accounts provided by the suspect.
By creating multiple Zalo accounts, Duong Van An defrauded Ms. T of a total of nearly 30 million VND. Of that amount, over 11 million VND was obtained through a fake Zalo account impersonating Colonel Phung Tat Thanh, Chief of Police of Bao Loc City.
Working with the investigating agency, Duong Van An admitted and confessed to all of his criminal acts.
