Exposing the tricks of a group of people who specialize in cheating people out of winning prizes to appropriate property

Although the group of subjects operated with sophisticated methods and tricks, over a large area, they were exposed by the Thanh Chuong District Police (Nghe An), promptly preventing this group from continuing their actions.Cheatother victims.

Impersonating a "bank employee" to announce a "winning prize"

In May 2022, Thanh Chuong District Police received a report from a woman about a call from a person informing her that she had won a prize of large sums of money and valuable assets. The condition for receiving the prize was that the person had to pay a deposit in advance. However, after a period of transferring a large sum of money, she still did not receive the money and "winning" items as informed by the caller. At that time, the woman realized that she had been scammed by a bad person, so she reported it to the police.

Immediately after receiving the report, Thanh Chuong District Police quickly took action to verify the information. At the same time, synchronously deploying professional measures, the police discovered a group of subjects in Ha Tinh related to the incident. Although these subjects did not have a specific job, they had a very dissolute lifestyle, showing signs of economic ambiguity. Also during this time, Thanh Chuong District Police received additional complaints from other victims with similar behavior. Many victims transferred large sums of money to the subjects, even up to hundreds of millions of dong. To concentrate forces and synchronously deploy professional measures, Thanh Chuong District Police established a special project to fight.

The group of Nguyen Hoang Long, Duong Viet Lam, Le Van Toan, Nguyen Van Anh and Hoang Anh Tuan were discovered and arrested by Thanh Chuong District Police. Photo: Pham Thuy

However, during the process of fighting and clarifying, the Task Force encountered many difficulties in verifying and monitoring the movements of the group of subjects. Because they are freelance workers, this group of subjects often changes their place of residence. The subjects not only commit crimes in Nghe An province but also in many areas of Ha Tinh province, Hanoi city, Vung Tau... In particular, during the process of operation, this group of subjects uses many sophisticated and secretive methods and tricks. Specifically, in order to create trust for the victims, depending on each case, the subjects will assign the roles of each person very clearly, sometimes "playing the role" of a bank employee, a "Security Department" officer, a person who has won a prize...

To avoid detection, these subjects are very cautious when using an account number that is not the owner's name. When the victims "fall into the trap", they will give a pre-prepared account number for the victim to transfer money. Upon receiving the money, the subjects will transfer the money to 4-5 other account numbers before reaching the owner's account number.

In addition, with the purpose of covering up their crimes, each time they carry out a new mission, these subjects only use mobile phones with calling functions and buy junk SIM cards to use. This group of subjects even discussed and showed each other how to access social networking sites, video sharing platforms... to learn how to make fake calls from bank employees, police officers... to notify customers of winning valuable prizes (such as motorbikes, cash...), how to ask customers to transfer money to complete the procedures to receive prizes and register for nice license plates...

Solve the case

Synchronously deploying professional measures, the Task Force identified a group of subjects involved in criminal activities including: Nguyen Hoang Long (born 1994), Duong Viet Lam (born 1994), Le Van Toan (born 1995), Nguyen Van Anh (born 1994) and Hoang Anh Tuan (born 1991), all residing in Ky Anh district, Ha Tinh province.

After a period of monitoring the movement, the Task Force identified the lodging location of Nguyen Hoang Long, Duong Viet Lam and Le Van Toan in Quarter 3, Long Binh Tan Ward, Bien Hoa City, Dong Nai Province. Determined not to let the subjects continue to commit crimes and defraud more victims into falling into the "trap", the Task Force came up with a plan and immediately sent a working group to Bien Hoa City, Dong Nai Province to successfully capture the above subjects and safely escort them to the Thanh Chuong District Police Headquarters. Next, using many professional measures, the Task Force also successfully arrested Nguyen Van Anh and Hoang Anh Tuan while they were hiding in an abandoned house in Ky Anh District, Ha Tinh Province.

Subject Hoang Anh Tuan at the police station. Photo: Trong Tuan

At the police station, in front of the investigators' evidence and documents, the five subjects admitted their crimes. Accordingly, taking advantage of the gullibility and trust of the people, using many sophisticated methods and tricks, under the guise of announcing the winning of valuable assets and cash, the subjects called victims in many localities across the country to entice and trick the victims into transferring deposits of several million to hundreds of millions of VND to "receive the prize". By the above tricks, in 2022, this group of subjects committed fraud and appropriated the property of many victims with a total amount of more than 1 billion VND.

Typically, around the beginning of June 2022, under the guidance of Duong Viet Lam and Nguyen Hoang Long, Le Van Toan called Ms. L. (residing in Hanoi) pretending to be someone "working at the Security Department", asking Ms. L. to prepare 10 million VND to "pay to the Security Department to reserve the gift...". Using similar tricks, Duong Viet Lam, Nguyen Hoang Long and Le Van Toan repeatedly tricked Ms. L. into transferring more than 800 million VND to the account number that these two subjects had previously prepared.

Then, in early September 2022, Duong Viet Lam Lam's group, Hoang Anh Tuan and Nguyen Van Anh used a phone with a junk SIM card to randomly dial a number and then called. Ms. NTS (born in 1972), residing in Thanh Xuan commune, Thanh Chuong district (Nghe An) answered the phone. Nguyen Van Anh pretended to be a bank employee and congratulated the woman on her "lucky win" of a SH motorbike worth 95 million VND and 300 million VND in cash from VCB bank. To gain the woman's trust, Nguyen Van Anh said that recently a young man from Quang Binh was also lucky to win the prize and told the woman to call the young man's phone number (actually Hoang Anh Tuan pretending to be) to verify the winning information.

After seeing that Ms. NTS had "taken the bait", Nguyen Van Anh and Hoang Anh Tuan took turns continuing to trick Ms. S. into "choosing a nice license plate" worth 50 million VND. To prevent the woman from being suspicious, the two subjects "committed" that, after completing all the procedures, they would "send someone to deliver the motorbike and a gift worth 240 million VND. At the same time, they would return 45 million VND to Ms. S." Seeing this, Ms. S. did not suspect anything and transferred 50 million VND to Nguyen Van Anh.

Subject Nguyen Hoang Long at the Police Department. Photo: Pham Thuy

All the money that the group of subjects Nguyen Hoang Long, Hoang Anh Tuan, Nguyen Van Anh, Duong Viet Lam, and Le Van Toan defrauded and appropriated from the victims, they used for entertainment and personal expenses. It is known that in 2015, subject Duong Viet Lam was sentenced to 24 months in prison by the People's Court of Ha Tinh province for the crime of disturbing public order. Hoang Anh Tuan and Nguyen Van Anh were administratively punished by the police of Ky Anh district (Ha Tinh) for gambling on July 20, 2020. Previously, in 2013, Hoang Anh Tuan was sentenced to 7 months in prison by the People's Court of Thuan An town, Binh Duong province for the crime of theft of property.

Currently, the Thanh Chuong District Police Investigation Agency has initiated a case and prosecuted 5 suspects Nguyen Van Anh, Duong Viet Lam, Le Van Toan, Hoang Anh Tuan, and Nguyen Hoang Long for the act of Fraudulent appropriation of property.

Although in recent times, the authorities have issued many warnings about fraud and property appropriation via social networks and high-tech crimes, in reality, with the extremely sophisticated methods and tricks of the scammers, many people still "fall into the trap". Therefore, along with the involvement of the authorities to fight, prevent and strictly handle fraudulent acts, each person also needs to improve their vigilance, legal knowledge and technology to avoid "falling into the trap" of increasingly sophisticated fraud methods today.

Authorities also recommend that when people are scammed, victims must immediately contact the nearest police station to report.