Impersonating police to defraud nearly 5.6 billion VND

On September 15, the Hanoi People's Court opened a trial for a group of Vietnamese people who colluded with two foreigners to commit crimes to defraud Vietnamese people of VND5.6 billion.

According to the indictment of the Hanoi People's Procuracy, in April 2014, via Facebook, Vu Van Dai (24 years old, living in Thanh Hai commune, Luc Ngan district, Bac Giang) worked as a freelance interpreter for two Taiwanese (Chinese) subjects.

During the translation process, the two Taiwanese subjects asked Dai to make international payment bank cards at the bank to resell to Taiwanese businesses operating in Vietnam to commit tax evasion. Dai hired and instructed Nguyen Trong Duc (26 years old, living in Tan Thinh commune, Van Chan district, Yen Bai) to open an international payment bank card according to the instructions of the two Taiwanese subjects.

To open more cards, Dai and Duc discussed buying back identity cards at pawn shops, then finding someone to take a photo to replace the photo on the purchased ID card and then hiring them to go to the bank to open an account to make an international payment card.

Defendant Dai (far left) and his accomplices in court.

During the period from July 2014 to November 2014, Dai, Duc and their accomplices including Nguyen Xuan Do (in Dai Phu commune, Son Duong district, Tuyen Quang), Tran Nguyen Binh and Tran Xuan Hoa (both in Di Trach commune, Hoai Duc district, Hanoi) were all freelance workers who used tricks to replace and paste other photos on ID cards purchased from the public, then used these ID cards to open 146 bank accounts to make international payment cards to resell to foreigners for a profit of nearly 500 million VND. In this case, Dai played the role of mastermind, profiting nearly 380 million VND.

The investigation of this case has determined that among the accounts used by these criminals to appropriate money from Vietnamese citizens through the use of telecommunications systems impersonating police phone numbers to make fraudulent phone calls. The investigation agency has received many reports from victims about being called by a group of people speaking in a southern accent to their family's phone number to talk about owing a large amount of money on phone bills. After that, this group of people led the victims to talk to someone claiming to be a police officer to explain the amount of phone bills owed.

While talking to the victims, the subject impersonated a police officer, threatened the victims that they were involved in a transnational drug crime ring and asked them to provide information about their bank accounts, threatened the victims to keep it a secret to serve the investigation and asked the victims to deposit money into their accounts... The 9 victims, who were from Hanoi, withdrew nearly 5.6 billion VND in savings to transfer to the accounts requested by the group, which were then withdrawn and appropriated in full.

During the investigation of this case, in June 2015, the Hanoi City Police Department decided to separate documents related to the case of using computer networks, telecommunications networks, the Internet or digital devices to commit property appropriation by two Taiwanese subjects for further investigation, clarification and later handling.

At the trial, the panel sentenced the defendant Dai to 4 years and 6 months in prison; the defendant Duc to 4 years in prison; the defendant Do to 3 years and 6 months in prison; the defendant Binh to 3 years in prison and the defendant Hoa to 2 years and 6 months in prison for the crime of modifying and using certificates and documents of agencies and organizations./.

According to CAND online