Curtain falls on the act of pretending to be a pretty girl to 'trick' a 70-year-old man by a group of people in the Golden Triangle Special Zone

4 Step Scam Scenario

One day in late July, a 68-year-old man from Lam Dong province arrived early at the courtroom of Nghe An Provincial People's Court. With neatly trimmed gray hair and dark skin, he sat quietly in the victim's seat in a fraud case. He did not expect to be scammed by a group of young men the same age as his children and grandchildren using sophisticated tricks.

The person who spent many months pretending to be a pretty girl, sweet-talking the victim was Vi Van Linh (born 2003), residing in Con Cuong commune. In addition, there were other people who helped, including: Kha Van Uc (born 2002, residing in Mau Thach commune), Loc Van Tao (born 2001) and Luong Van Hien (born 2002), both residing in Nga My commune, and Vi Thi Le (born 2002, residing in Binh Chuan commune, Nghe An).

These “young men and women” went to the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (in Bo Keo province, Laos) around September 2023, working for Chinese subjects. This group operates as a company, specializing in luring and recruiting Vietnamese and Lao people to participate in fraud,appropriation of propertyof Vietnamese people.

When entering the “company”, the subjects will be divided into groups by the Chinese to work. Members will be provided with computers, phones, and trained to use a “fraud script” consisting of 4 steps.

First, they will create fake Facebook and Zalo accounts of many people, sharing images of being single, wealthy, and living a prosperous life from investing through the "Biconomynft" application (this is a virtual cryptocurrency exchange application created by Chinese people and controlled according to their wishes).

After that, the subjects will choose suitable "prey" to send friend requests, text messages to get acquainted, create love relationships, and date online. After a while, the subjects will find ways to call and entice victims to invest in virtual currency.

At first, the subjects will transfer a certain amount of money to gain the victim’s trust, gradually increasing the investment amount. Then, based on the investment results of the “prey”, the mastermind group will make assessments to decide whether to “fatten” or “kill”.

Finally, when the victims have invested a certain amount of money, the mastermind will “freeze” the account, not allowing withdrawals and giving many reasons such as adding account opening fees, withdrawal fees, income tax, etc. to trick the victims into continuing to transfer money. This step will take place until the victims have no more money to transfer or realize they have been scammed and stop.

Pretending to be a pretty girl to "woo" an old man, defrauding tens of billions

From September 2023 to June 12, 2024, Tao, Hien, Linh, Uc, and Le went to the Golden Triangle special zone to work. Vi Van Linh was assigned to a team managed by Lao people. The remaining subjects were assigned to a team led by Loc Van Tao. Every day, the team leader would urge and urge the members to focus on their tasks.

According to the case file, these subjects together defrauded Mr. NVH (68 years old, residing in Lam Dong province) of more than 19.3 billion VND. In particular, Vi Van Linh was the one who directly defrauded by pretending to be a beautiful woman to approach and flirt with Mr. H.

Through the account “Pham Quynh Chau”, Linh talked to and flirted with Mr. L. When the victim developed feelings, Linh enticed him to install and guide him to invest in virtual currency with many promises of profits. Trusting him, Mr. H. followed Linh’s instructions and transferred more than 18.1 billion VND to invest.

During the process of transferring money for investment, Mr. H. received 320 million VND in "profit". After a period of "baiting", on March 29, 2024, the company owner asked Linh's team to stop talking to Mr. H. to "kill" him and then freeze his account. In this scam, Linh received more than 1.1 billion VND in commission from the Chinese boss.

In addition, due to losing money in online gambling, Linh texted, talked about love, and asked for and borrowed money from Mr. H. Vi Van Linh, saying it was to buy jewelry and gifts for the holidays, to appropriate 147 million VND from the victim. Thus, in this case, Linh illegally benefited from the fraud of more than 1.2 billion VND.

Also assisting Linh were Loc Van Tao, Kha Van Uc, Vi Thi Le, Luong Van Hien and many other unidentified individuals. Tao was the team leader, responsible for managing hours, urging team members to work, and adjusting software parameters on the computer according to the instructions of the management subject.

Hien and Uc were effective practitioners. Therefore, these subjects must be responsible for the amount of money that Linh defrauded the victims. In addition, Uc also texted and tricked Mr. H.'s feelings to appropriate more than 1.1 billion VND from the old man. Uc used the above amount to buy a SH motorbike, pay for house repairs for his parents and for personal expenses.

After a period of hard work in fraud, the subjects asked their boss to let them return home to rest and settle personal matters. On June 19, 2024, Kha Van Uc and Vi Van Linh were arrested by the Nghe An police investigation agency in an emergency. A few days later, when they learned that their accomplices had been arrested, the remaining three subjects turned themselves in to the police.

"I lost money and my honor"

For the above crimes, the defendants Vi Van Linh, Kha Van Uc, Loc Van Tao, Vi Thi Le and Luong Van Hien were prosecuted and brought to trial for the crime of Fraudulent appropriation of property. In front of the witness stand, the subjects admitted to the act of impersonating beautiful girls to approach and defraud the victims.

Linh stated that during the process of approaching and flirting with the victim, he only texted and did not call. After more than 3 months of “building feelings”, Linh enticed the victim to invest money in virtual currency. After that, within just over 1 month, the victim transferred a total of more than 18 billion VND 65 times.

The defendants confessed that although they knew they would be doing fraud in Laos, they did not care because of greed. Some of them returned to their home country to continue the fraud. They said they had spent all the money they had illegally obtained.

At the trial, the subjects confessed that the fixed salary they received each month was about 10 million VND. Each month, the subjects were set a target by their Chinese boss to defraud 3,000 USD or more. If the target was exceeded, the subject who directly talked or texted to entice them would receive a commission of 6% of the amount successfully defrauded, and the team leader would receive 3%. If anyone failed to achieve the target, their salary would be deducted. When a subject successfully defrauded, the information would be posted on the chat group so that other subjects would know and send congratulations.

At the end of the working day, the leader will hold a meeting to announce the results of each individual and each group on the amount of money that has been scammed to motivate and encourage successful scammers. At the same time, remind and urge other subjects to study and improve their scamming skills for the next time.

Attending the court as a victim, Mr. H. said he had lost everything because of the defendants' fraudulent behavior. "Not only did I lose money and property, I also lost my honor and did not dare to return to my hometown," he briefly stated in court. The victim asked the defendants to return the money to him. Because most of the money he sent to the fraud group was borrowed from friends and relatives.

The panel of judges determined that the defendants’ actions violated the law and were dangerous to society. After considering the role of each defendant in the case, the court sentenced Vi Van Linh to life in prison, Kha Van Uc to 19 years in prison, and Loc Van Tao to 12 years in prison. Vi Thi Le and Luong Van Hien were each sentenced to 9 years in prison for fraud and appropriation of property.

The trial ended with harsh sentences for the defendants. The victim left quietly. Being scammed by a group of young people and having a large sum of money stolen was a big shock for the old man.