Hackers take over Facebook accounts and 'stage' scams to defraud people of money.

Dung and Duong found Facebook accounts of Vietnamese people living abroad and stole their passwords.

On July 10th, the Criminal Police Department (Hanoi Police) announced that they had handed over Le Van Dung (18 years old) and Nguyen Thanh Duong (21 years old, both residing in Trieu Phong district, Quang Tri province) to the Quang Tri Police for investigation into the crime of fraud and appropriation of property.

According to the investigation documents, Dung often went online to find Facebook accounts of Vietnamese people living abroad, then tracked them down and stole their passwords. The data was then transferred to Duong to trick the relatives of these Facebook account owners into transferring money or buying cosmetics, etc.

Suspect Dung reenacts how he stole Facebook passwords. Photo: Police.

Typically, on July 5th, Dung seized control of the Facebook account of Mr. Vo Van Nham (residing in Ha Tinh province, currently working in Japan). After gaining control of Mr. Nham's account, Dung had Duong chat with Mr. Nham's mother, tricking her into sending 20 million VND to several intermediary accounts for personal expenses.

According to the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ha Tinh Provincial Police, Dung and Duong were knowledgeable in information technology and employed sophisticated methods. After stealing Facebook accounts, to avoid suspicion from the victims' relatives, the pair would initially make direct video calls, but without showing their faces or saying anything, then hang up. Next, they would send messages claiming a weak network connection and unable to make calls, thus "acting out" a scam to extort money.

Authorities allege that, over the past year, using a similar scheme, Dung and Duong defrauded 12 people in Ha Tinh and other areas of money and phone top-up cards, totaling 160 million VND. The stolen assets were divided among them for personal use.

According to VNE