Hundreds of victims fall into high-tech crime traps

Online fraudsters (2nd and 3rd from left) were arrested by Nghi Loc Police in Da Nang. Photo: NH

Complicated developments

Although it has only been established for over a year, the High-Tech Crime Prevention Team (Criminal Police Department, Nghe An Provincial Police) is "unable" to "do" all the work. Major Ha Huy Duc - Head of the High-Tech Crime Prevention Team, said this when talking about the crime situation in the province.

“In 2018 alone, the unit received reports from hundreds of victims who were scammed and had tens of billions of dong appropriated,” Major Duc said, adding that many victims came to report in a state of panic, and many people became depressed and lost consciousness after losing such a large amount of money.

3 months ago, Ms. Phan Khanh Chung (61 years old, residing in Vinh City) went to the Criminal Police Department of the Provincial Police to report that she was scammed by a group of people and had 256 million VND appropriated. The victim said that one morning, she was home alone and the landline phone rang. On the other end of the line, a person claiming to be a telecommunications employee informed her that she owed more than 8 million VND in phone bills.

Despite her efforts to explain that she did not owe any money, Ms. Chung was still led into a conspiracy by these subjects with threats about a transnational crime ring.

As if hypnotized, Ms. Chung went to the bank and transferred 256 million VND from her savings to their bank account. When she came to, she realized that the money she had saved for years to support her old age had disappeared.

A woman comes to report to the investigation agency. Photo: Thanh Quynh

Ms. Chung is just one of hundreds of victims who lost large sums of money because they believed in the scams created by the scammers. Police said that with the development of social networks, online fraud crimes have increased in number, nature and extent of damage in recent years.

“There are many tricks that criminals use to commit fraud, such as fraud by appropriating telecommunication fees; fraud by taking access to Facebook accounts; fraud by illegally accessing bank accounts to transfer money; fraud by selling goods online, gambling in the form of lottery via telecommunication networks, online football betting…”, said Colonel Pham Hoai Nam - Head of the Criminal Police Department.

The characteristic of high-tech crime is the use of technological devices, combined with the Internet and social networks to scam people. The victims of these scammers do not exclude anyone, regardless of age, gender or sex.

Through investigation of many cases, the police said that the ringleaders often do not reside in the province but in other provinces and cities, and there are even Chinese, Taiwanese, and African suspects.

“In most cases, the police only catch the underlings and helpers, but it is difficult to catch the ringleader. These people are all abroad, rarely reveal their whereabouts, and have many tricks to hide their identities, so it is very difficult to arrest them,” said Major Duc.

In 2018, the Criminal Police Department of Nghe An Provincial Police established 12 special projects on high-tech crimes, discovered 10 special projects, arrested, prosecuted, and administratively handled 76 criminals and violators of the law on high-tech use.Compared to 2017, there were 6 more cases and 30 more subjects.

The police have also received more than 100 reports and accusations related to high-tech crimes, causing tens of billions of dong in damage.

People must protect themselves.

The police agency assessed that, before the explosion of information technology in the development trend of the 4.0 industrial revolution, which strongly impacted the development of the Internet and telecommunications networks in Vietnam, this created conditions for high-tech crimes to increase in number along with increasingly sophisticated methods and tricks, making them more difficult to prevent and combat.

Three suspects Pham Dinh Luan, Nguyen Huu Thu, and Pham Dinh Phi were sentenced to 37 years in prison for fraud and appropriation of more than 3.5 billion VND. Photo: TV

Although the police of various units and localities have launched many crackdown campaigns, launched many sweeps, and arrested hundreds of subjects, the situation of high-tech gambling crimes is still extremely complicated.

It is true that criminals are becoming more and more cunning and devious, but the reason why these subjects have a place to "act" is because people are increasingly losing their vigilance. Not only those with limited awareness and social understanding, but also those with high education and many interactions with society still become victims of these scams.

There are also victims who, because they are too greedy for the sweet promises of criminals, "give" them large sums of money.

The case of Ms. LTT (residing in Vinh City), a retired government official, is an example. Ms. Tuyet often goes online and makes friends with foreigners. They say they have a large amount of dollars they want to send to Vietnam and ask Ms. Tuyet to receive it for them.

A person posing as a Customs officer informed Ms. Tuyet that she had to pay a fee to receive these gifts. Without thinking, Ms. Tuyet went to the bank to transfer 800 million VND to the account number they provided, not knowing that this was just a scam to steal her money.

Criminals hacked Facebook to defraud people of money after being arrested. Photo: File

The leader of the Criminal Police Department warned that the current use of zalo and facebook by many people is unintentionally helping scammers easily capture users' personal information to commit fraud. In cases like this, the possibility of recovering the money that scammers have appropriated is extremely difficult.

"People need to protect their own assets, first of all, they need to improve the security of their social network accounts. Regularly warn and share information about scams with relatives and friends so that everyone can proactively prevent them," said Colonel Pham Hoai Nam.