Revealing illegal acts of Online Trading Training Joint Stock Company (MB24) Nghe An Branch

(Baonghean) -While the "parent company" - Online Trading Training Joint Stock Company has an electronic trading floor at the addresswww.mb24.vnheadquartered at Lot C4, C8 Urban Area, My Dinh 1, Tu Liem, Hanoi and its "henchmen" in Phu Tho, Dak Lak, Thanh Hoa and Bac Can... are being "investigated" by the police, while the branch of this company in Nghe An at 41 Dao Duy Tu, Vinh City is still bustling with people coming and going, participating in e-business, which is essentially a disguised form of multi-level network activities through virtual e-business to make illegal profits, defraud customers, appropriate assets and "trick" state agencies to evade taxes. It is time to clarify the illegal activities of Mb24 Nghe An to avoid causing economic damage to the people as well as security and social order in the province.

The trick of attraction

Pretending to be a person who wants to join the e-commerce trading floor business system, we went to the Nghe An Branch of the Online Trading Training Joint Stock Company (mb24.vn) at 41 Dao Duy Tu Street, Vinh City and were warmly welcomed by Ms. NTL, a member who has been participating in this trading system for 5 months. When she knew that we intended to learn more about joining, she immediately "talked nonstop" about the opportunities to buy preferential products from poor and empty stalls on the interface of the mb24 e-commerce trading floor; that members also have the opportunity to get rich quickly and simply with "dreamy" income if they become official members when buying electronic stalls on this company's trading floor.



The headquarters of Online Trading Training Joint Stock Company, Nghe An branch is at 41 Dao Duy Tu, Vinh City.

The condition is still: you only need to spend 5.2 million VND to buy an electronic booth on the mb24.vn platform to sell goods here, the more booths you buy, the higher your income. But in fact, these are virtual booths where you only need to "invite" a friend or relative to join this business system to receive a direct "commission" of 150 points (equivalent to 1.5 million VND) and an indirect person of 15 points (150,000 VND) according to the "unequal progressive binary tree" diagram of the multi-level marketing model. Just like that, when you develop your system to 198 people (each leg of the binary tree has 99 people), you will reach the VIP level and will be paid a commission from the system of 111,680 million VND/month. This is a huge, extremely attractive number, playing on people's greed to try to attract as many customers as possible into their system with the "dream" of getting rich quickly, regardless of breaking the law. After the VIP level is deputy director, then director, diamond director... with huge income, making many people rush in like moths to a flame to make a profit.

In order to convince customers, this member opened her account to show us her income of hundreds of millions of dong when she reached VIP level, and the opportunity to buy discounted products, but in fact, it was just a few promotional phone cards she used during the month. To deceive customers about the real prospect of buying and selling to make customers trust, at the 4-storey house rented as a branch of the company at 41 Dao Duy Tu Street, Vinh City, there were a few small items displayed, symbolizing a few small transactions, making people think this was a real business.

To learn more about the illegal behavior of this online trading activity, we approached some other members. Telling us the story in tears of regret, a second-year student of the Biology Department of Vinh University - Ms. Nguyen Thi Ng. said that she had "fallen deep" into this disguised business model. At first, Ng. was promised an opportunity to make easy money and a bright prospect from this job by a member of the upper level. So, although she was a student living on the allowance sent by her parents in the countryside, Ng. took the risk of borrowing 12 million VND from friends and relatives to buy 3 stalls (at a preferential price for members). More than a month has passed, those 3 stalls have not done any business except for convincing 5 people to come in, she received 5.5 million VND in commission, the remaining amount is owed and Ng. has promised to pay but she does not know where to get it. Knowing that he had been scammed and wanted to get his money back, the upper level replied: “That money was paid to the person who introduced me. If you want to get that money, you have to bring someone in to get a commission to compensate for the money you spent.” Only then did Ng. realize, had to hide it from his parents and accept to continue “tricking” more people into his system to recover the money he had lost.

As a small trader at Ben Thuy market, Ms. Hoang Thi H. is hard-working and works hard day and night with her small stall. She understands better than anyone the value of money earned from honest labor, she never expected that one day such a thing would happen... That was one time 2 months ago, a friend introduced her to a leisurely and easy-to-make-money business, even making her rich. She did not know anything about computers or e-commerce, so she trusted her friend and joined. Fascinated by the consultant, she believed and spent 20 million VND saved from daily trading to buy 6 stalls (at a preferential price for members) to try her luck. And then her stalls did not sell any goods, but Ms. H.'s new "business" was to invite friends and relatives to buy stalls worth 5.2 million VND like hers every day to earn income from commissions for introducing new members. When the fraudulent nature of the business network was exposed by the media, those who participated with her came to ask her to compensate them for the losses they had suffered when buying the booth, and from then on she lost the trust and emotional relationships of everyone. Bitterness at the price she had to pay for her gullibility and lack of knowledge had led her to the tragedy of today, but it was too late. She shared shamefully: "I am this old and have been deceived to lose things that are more than money, which are alienation and loss of affection from everyone."

Most of the people participating in this virtual e-business model are students from universities and colleges in Vinh City and some neighboring districts. In addition, there are also unemployed fresh graduates, freelancers, and some state officials who "dream" of getting rich to change their lives; and many people have had to suffer the loss of money for this "business" activity. According to NTL, currently in Nghe An province, more than 3,000 virtual stores have been opened with a profit of 5.2 million VND/store, so the profit of Nghe An branch is up to billions of VND.

Ignoring business registration commitments and tax evasion

In the certificate of registration of branch operation with the Department of Planning and Investment of Nghe An starting from September 28, 2011 with branch code: 0105328486-029 of Online Trading Training Joint Stock Company (Mb24) Nghe An branch at 41 Dao Duy Tu Street, Vinh City, with Mr. Ho Anh Tuan (born in 1972) as director. The certificate of the Department of Planning and Investment of Nghe An issued for 22 fields of industry and occupation such as: restaurants and mobile catering services; trading in fabrics, ready-made garments, footwear; transporting goods by road... as self-declared by the branch. This is a sophisticated and skillful "drama" to blind the authorities, transforming into a single field that they are conducting, which is training members to persuade people to join the system, buy virtual electronic booths, and become members to continue to "expand" that method with the number of members up to 3,000 virtual booths with a large amount of money but evading tax obligations to the State. According to documents provided by the Nghe An Tax Department, the branch only paid 1.5 million VND in business tax. The remaining tax obligations for the industries that the branch registered with the State have not been implemented in the past year, causing a large loss to the local budget. Mr. Nguyen Tai Dung - Deputy Director of the Nghe An Department of Industry and Trade said: "If what the branch declared about its business lines is the same, this is also under the management of the Department. However, in reality, the Department did not receive this information from the branch".

Committed to the State and society about the branch’s operational functions, but what is happening here shows the opposite. The branch office is arranged with a few glass cabinets displaying a few poor, monotonous goods of unknown origin to “entice” those who are still unfamiliar with this new type of business.

Currently, signs of a chain collapse of the Mb24 network across the country have occurred. Police in some localities have arrested the leaders of provincial branches, of which Nghe An is no exception, and especially the directive of the General Department VI. Because this is a new field, there is still no legal corridor or specific sanctions to regulate the above illegal activities. Therefore, in Nghe An, the authorities are confused in monitoring early and quickly before the rapid explosion of this business activity. In order to avoid causing damage to the people, it is thought that the relevant agencies need to quickly intervene to end the above illegal business situation.

On August 2, 2012, according to Lieutenant General Trieu Quoc Dat - Deputy Director General of the General Department of Crime Prevention Police (General Department VI), the General Department has directed the police of 32 provinces and cities directly under the Central Government with offices of the Online Trading Training Joint Stock Company (mb24) to simultaneously conduct urgent searches and seize documents to serve the investigation. The authorities determined that the people in the above line took advantage of e-commerce to defraud people, so they will be prosecuted for using computer networks, telecommunications networks, the Internet or digital devices to commit property appropriation according to Article 226b of the Penal Code.

Tuan Minh