'Cheap airline ticket' scam traps many people

The Hanoi City Police Department of Investigation announced that it has just initiated a case, prosecuted the accused, and detained Nguyen Minh Luong (born in 1982, in lane 658 Truong Dinh, Giap Bat ward, Hoang Mai district, Hanoi) for the crime of "Abuse of trust to appropriate property".

By advertising cheap airline tickets, Luong went online to book tickets and get the booking code to transfer to the buyer but did not pay, embezzling hundreds of millions of dong.

One of Nguyen Minh Luong's victims, Hoang Minh Chau (from Ung Hoa, Hanoi), currently living and working in Japan, said that in early 2017, through some acquaintances who introduced Luong as a person who specializes in selling cheap airline tickets, Chau became friends with Luong on Facebook.

At the end of 2017, Mr. Chau wanted to bring his wife and children from Japan to Vietnam, so he asked Luong to help him buy cheap airline tickets. Not only did he buy tickets for Mr. Chau at a price lower than the airline's, when Mr. Chau's family arrived at Noi Bai airport, Luong personally drove a car to pick them up and take them home.

Along the way, Luong talked affectionately like family, making Chau very touched.

Luong said that she had close relationships with airlines so she had a source to buy cheap air tickets and asked Mr. Chau to cooperate as an "agent" for air tickets for the Vietnamese community in Japan. That is, if any Vietnamese in Japan wanted to buy cheap air tickets to return home, they could contact Mr. Chau and transfer money to Vietnam for Luong to buy for them.

Happy to meet a kind fellow countryman, when returning to Japan, Mr. Chau contacted friends, family members and the Vietnamese community in Japan to book plane tickets for everyone.

After someone asked him to buy a ticket, Chau transferred money to Luong's account and the information of the ticket buyer. Luong, in turn, sent Chau the flight information, ticket price and flight date and time. The first few times, the airline ticket purchase went quite smoothly.

Even a friend of Mr. Chau had a relative in Vietnam who passed away and asked him to help buy a plane ticket to return to Vietnam urgently. When receiving the money for the ticket, Nguyen Minh Luong reduced the price by 10% with the reason of "sharing" the pain of loss with Mr. Chau's friend. With this action, Nguyen Minh Luong gained Mr. Chau's absolute trust.

Knowing that Mr. Chau trusted him, Nguyen Minh Luong proactively contacted Mr. Chau to invite him to contribute money to invest in the airline ticket business. Mr. Chau agreed to contribute nearly 200 million VND.

Everything went smoothly at first. By the end of July 2018, many Vietnamese people in Japan asked Chau to buy plane tickets to return home. Chau transferred the customers' information and nearly 245 million VND to Luong to buy tickets. However, near the flight date, Luong announced that there was an "incident" so the plane tickets were canceled but did not return the money to Chau.

Because he had already received the money from the customer, Mr. Chau had to pay out of his own pocket to refund the ticket and book another flight for 402 million VND. Later, Mr. Chau learned that Luong had cheated many other Vietnamese people in Japan with similar tricks.

In addition to Mr. Hoang Minh Chau, many other victims have also sent complaints to the investigation agency about Nguyen Minh Luong's money appropriation using the same method.

After selling cheap airline tickets for the first few times to gain the trust of buyers, Luong lured them to collect money from those in need to transfer to her. Then, taking advantage of booking airline tickets online, Luong went to the online ticket selling website to get the booking code and transferred it to the ticket buyer. Because Luong did not pay, after 24 hours, the system automatically canceled the booking code.

To avoid ticket buyers from asking for money, Luong often targets Vietnamese people living and working abroad. As a result, many people who do not have tickets until the day of their flight has left have to bitterly pay for tickets at high prices.

To deceive many people, Nguyen Minh Luong did not advertise the sale of airline tickets on his personal Facebook page but only communicated via text messages. Initially, the investigation agency determined that Nguyen Minh Luong had appropriated about 500 million VND from customers.

To continue to investigate and expand the case, the Investigation Police Agency requests that anyone who is a victim of Nguyen Minh Luong contact investigation officer Tran Anh Dung, Team 10, Economic Police Department of Hanoi City Police to provide information and resolve the case. Address: 40B Hang Bai, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi. Phone:0913569000.