Bank director alert to help police expose clever scam

On March 16, the Investigation Police Agency of Thanh Xuan District, Hanoi announced that it had initiated a case and prosecuted the defendant Dao Duy Thanh (born in 1996, residing in Son La City, Son La Province) for the act of "Forging seals and documents of agencies and organizations".

According to documents from the police agency, on December 23, 2021, Kim Giang Ward Police (Thanh Xuan) received a report from Mr. Luu Duc Thanh, director of a bank, headquartered in Kim Giang Ward, that on December 23, a male subject used an identity card (ID) named Huynh Trong Nhan to make a money transfer transaction and withdraw money from the account holder named Huynh Trong Nhan with an amount of 65 million VND in cash and authorized the payment of 400 million VND from the account named Nguyen Manh Toan... During the transaction, Mr. Thanh discovered that this ID card had signs of forgery, so he reported it to Kim Giang Ward Police.

During the investigation, Thanh Xuan District Police clarified the actions of the suspect Dao Duy Thanh. At the police station, Thanh confessed that he knew Nguyen Thi Huong Huyen (born in 1990, residing in Kim Boi District, Hoa Binh) and Nguyen Manh Toan (born in 1989, residing in Thanh Oai District, Hanoi) and Huyen discussed with him that many people wanted to buy bank accounts.

Subjects Dao Duy Thanh, Nguyen Manh Toan and Nguyen Thi Huong Huyen.

Therefore, Huyen will forge many ID cards with photos of Toan and Thanh to bring to banks to open accounts. When opening an account, 2 phone numbers will be registered, some will be registered to receive OTP codes from the money transfer application on the phone, some will be registered to receive balance change notifications when money is transferred to the account (these phone numbers are prepared by Huyen).

After successfully opening an account and registering the phone number to receive the OTP code, Huyen will give it to the buyer, and Huyen will keep the phone number to receive the balance change notification. When the money is transferred into the account, Huyen will notify Thanh and Toan so that the two subjects can go to the bank to use the fake ID card to open the account before to withdraw money to appropriate this amount, each time Huyen appropriates the property, she will divide it equally among everyone.

Specifically, from April 2021 to the end of July 2021, Huyen gave Thanh a total of 7 fake ID cards and the subject used these fake ID cards to open about 30 accounts at many different banks. After successfully opening, Thanh handed over all of these bank accounts to Huyen to sell to customers. With the above tricks, Thanh and Huyen have repeatedly appropriated money in bank accounts. Huyen divided about 70 million VND for Thanh. On December 23, 2021, Thanh used a fake ID card under the name Huynh Trong Nhan to go to a bank in Kim Giang to do procedures to appropriate 465 million VND but was discovered and detained.

Based on the collected documents, the Police Department also summoned Nguyen Manh Toan to work. At the Police Department, Toan confessed that around June 2021, Huyen gave Toan a total of 7 fake ID cards, and Toan used 3 fake ID cards given by Huyen to open 7 accounts at different banks.

At the time of opening the account, Toan also registered 2 phone numbers as Huyen had previously instructed. After successfully opening the account, Toan handed over the account number and fake ID card to Huyen so that Huyen could sell it to customers and appropriate more than 4 million VND, of which Huyen divided more than 2 million VND to Toan.

In addition, Toan also knew that Huyen told Thanh to use a fake ID card under the name Huynh Trong Nhan to open a bank account, then sold this account to a man living in Ho Chi Minh City to use to buy and sell stocks and Forex (buy and sell virtual currency).

On December 23, 2021, Huyen called Toan to inform him that the account had just been sold to a man in Ho Chi Minh City who had just transferred 465 million VND. Huyen would tell Thanh to withdraw 65 million VND, and the remaining 400 million VND would be transferred to an account under the name of Nguyen Manh Toan. After that, Toan would withdraw the money and share it. However, when Toan made the transaction, the bank said that the money was on hold so he could not withdraw it. Toan informed Thanh about the matter and went home.

Thanh Xuan District Police determined that the subjects in the case used fake ID cards to open accounts at many banks. When opening accounts, they used 2 mobile phone numbers registered with the bank, one of which was used to register to receive information on account balance changes, and the other was used to register to receive OTP codes when using electronic banking.

After that, the subjects advertised the accounts for sale on the Internet. When a customer bought the account, the subjects would transfer the ATM card along with the phone number to receive the OTP code to the customer via the delivery service. The subjects kept the phone number to receive balance change notifications. When detecting money in the user's account, the subjects would bring the fake ID card to the bank branches to carry out the transaction procedure to appropriate the victim's money.

With the above mentioned tricks, the subjects have successfully carried out many times and appropriated money from the victims. Investigation documents determined that the subjects opened a number of accounts at 7 banks under the names of the account holders: Huynh Trong Nhan, Dang Quoc Dat, Nguyen Van Tan, Le Van Tuong, Dang Quoc Dat, Nguyen Viet Quang, Hoang Thien Khiem, Nguyen Tuong Hung, Phan Duc Thinh, Nguyen Duc Viet, Phan Duc Thinh...

Currently, Nguyen Thi Thuong Huyen has left her residence. Thanh Xuan District Police Department has issued a search notice and is consolidating the case file against Nguyen Manh Toan to handle it according to the law.

To serve the investigation and expand the case, the Thanh Xuan District Police Department requests that anyone who is a victim of the above case please contact investigator Nguyen Van Ha, at phone number: 0913132121 or come to the headquarters of the Thanh Xuan District Police Department, Hanoi at address: 58 Vu Trong Phung, Thanh Xuan Trung, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi to report.

The police also recommend that people do not buy and use bank accounts of people selling on social networks, leading to unfortunate consequences.