Nghe An: 33 defendants appear in court in a fraud case involving a script impersonating a Cambodian prosecution agency
Phan Van Phuong is the leader of a ring of fake police, prosecutors, and court officials that swindled more than 14 billion from many victims. Phuong was assisted by many of his relatives and friends.
On October 13, the People's Court of Nghe An province opened the first instance trial of 33 defendants in a fraud ring to appropriate property led by Phan Van Phuong (born 1991), residing in Quang Dong commune (Nghe An).
Phan Van Phuong has lived in Cambodia and Myanmar for many years, so he knows a Taiwanese man named A Minh. This man introduced himself as the owner of a "company" that operates to defraud and appropriate property of Vietnamese people by impersonating officials of state agencies such as the Police, the Procuracy, the Court, etc.
They use different scenarios, calling people to threaten them about being involved in drug crimes, money laundering, and threatening to have them arrested. When people are afraid and explain, the subject asks them to declare which bank account they are using, how much money they have, and then asks them to cooperate with the authorities to prove that their money is not related to criminal acts.
The subjects then asked people to transfer money to the company's bank account, or provide the OTP code to the subjects, and withdraw money from savings books. When the victims deposited money into their own accounts, the subjects took over the property management rights.
The company has a tight, systematic organizational structure consisting of many departments, levels, and specific roles and tasks. Each department is an indispensable part in the process of committing fraud.
In addition to the owner, Mr. Minh, the company also has a manager, interpreter, and Vietnamese employees assigned to groups D1, D2, and D3 who directly make calls to carry out the fraud.
In which, D1 called to find the victim and then transferred the call to D2 to manipulate her psychologically. After that, D2 continued to transfer the call to D3 to commit the act of appropriating the victim's property.
When starting work at the company, employees are given scripted documents to guide them on how to commit fraud, and after studying for a while, they will practice.
After discussing the organization and operation of the scam company, Phuong agreed to cooperate with A Minh to establish the scam company because of the promise of high profits. Phuong was responsible for recruiting Vietnamese employees to commit the scam and directly managing the employees.
On December 18, 2022, Phuong returned to Vietnam to meet and contact a number of relatives and friends to recruit them to go to Cambodia to work as a scammer.
The first people were Doan Van Tung (born in 1990, Phuong's cousin), Hua Canh The (born in 1995, residing in Yen Thanh commune, Phuong's brother-in-law), Nguyen Trong Thong (born in 1996, residing in Quang Dong commune), Ho Quoc Tuan, Thai Sy Van (born in 1987, residing in Quang Dong commune), Dang Quy Quang (born in 1978, residing in Van Du commune).
In addition, Phuong also told these people that if they have relatives or friends who want to go to Cambodia to work, they should invite them to work together. When someone wants to go, Phuong will arrange the schedule and book the plane tickets.
Because of the promise of "easy work, high salary" and the company paying all initial costs, many other people in Yen Thanh, Thanh Chuong, and Con Cuong (old) districts were attracted to contact Cambodia to work.
On March 11, 2023, Phuong and the subjects left for Cambodia, went to the company's headquarters in a 17-storey building in Sihanoukville city, Phnom Penh and began studying the script to commit fraud.
The investigation agency determined that from April 2023 to January 2024, using the above tricks, the above subjects defrauded and appropriated more than 14.1 billion VND from 5 victims.
Because the case has many defendants, the trial is expected to last many days.
