Nghe An province arrests nearly 100 individuals involved in transnational high-tech fraud, embezzling over 2 trillion VND.

In recent times, organized crime, transnational crime, and the use of cyberspace for fraudulent activities to seize assets have continued to evolve in a highly complex and sophisticated manner, with increasingly larger scales and organized structures. Many individuals from Vietnam have been sent abroad for training and instruction to commit fraud against their own citizens, causing significant financial losses and leading to serious social consequences.

Recognizing this as a pressing issue significantly impacting people's lives and causing public outrage, the provincial police leadership directed forces under the Nghe An Provincial Police to actively implement professional measures, proactively gather information, investigate, arrest, and strictly punish those involved in such acts.exploiting cyberspaceto engage in criminal activity.

Through investigative work, the Criminal Police Department of Nghe An Provincial Police discovered a transnational organized crime gang using high technology, directly led and operated by a foreign national, with the participation of many Vietnamese individuals. This gang has two branches with headquarters located in Myanmar and the Philippines.

In response to this situation, the leaders of the Nghe An Provincial Police directly instructed the Criminal Police Department of Nghe An to take the lead and coordinate with relevant units to establish a special case to focus on combating, clarifying, arresting, and dismantling the criminal organization.

During the verification process, the Special Investigation Team determined that each branch of the criminal group was assigned one Vietnamese national to operate and manage it according to a company model. The group had a very tight-knit structure, a sophisticated organization, and a hierarchical structure with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. They were paid according to rank to facilitate operation and management. The individuals involved in the fraud were "trained" in both the fraud script and the strategies for dealing with law enforcement if apprehended. The total number of individuals involved in the criminal fraud organization across both branches exceeded 300.

These individuals are trained and instructed on how to commit fraud using scenarios such as "completing tasks to transfer money for purchases on e-commerce platforms to receive huge commissions," or emotional scams – befriending and dating – which are meticulously designed by the fraudsters to build trust and manipulate the victim's psychology.

First, employees are provided with fake Facebook accounts (usually belonging to women, featuring attractive photos and posts about their jobs, income, and comfortable lives) to search for accounts of successful, wealthy men. They then befriend and message these men to build a relationship, after which the perpetrators instruct the victims to add them on Viber for easier communication. After chatting for about two days, the perpetrators invite victims to invest by asking them to complete tasks for the "character" in order to receive gifts from an e-commerce platform (which is actually a fake e-commerce platform created by the perpetrators to carry out the scam).

For the initial tasks, victims receive both commission and principal to build trust. Once customers trust and comply, the perpetrators continue to request additional tasks, with the amount of money needed to be paid increasing, but no refunds are given due to "system errors or incorrect syntax." The victims are then asked to deposit more money to complete further tasks, but all the money is ultimately stolen.

To carry out their fraudulent activities and expand their operations, members of the criminal gang continuously recruited people from Vietnam via Myanmar and the Philippines to engage in scams. These individuals traveled by plane through Thailand legally, then illegally crossed the border into Myanmar from Thailand, or flew directly from Vietnam to the Philippines to join the criminal organization.

Through the verification, monitoring, and synchronized application of operational measures until June 23, 2025, under the direct guidance of the Provincial Police leadership, the Criminal Police Department of Nghe An Province, in coordination with the professional departments of the Ministry of Public Security, the professional departments of the Provincial Police, the police of provinces, cities, and border gates nationwide, and other relevant units, mobilized hundreds of officers and soldiers to form numerous task forces to successfully crack the case, simultaneously arresting and conducting urgent searches of nearly 100 suspects in Nghe An and many provinces and cities nationwide, including many suspects arrested shortly after entering Vietnam.

The police have identified Phan Dinh Thinh (born in 1995) and Le Thi Tra (born in 1999), both residing in Hung Dao commune, Hung Nguyen district, as two of the ringleaders of a transnational fraud ring. Initially, the suspects confessed to committing hundreds of fraud cases, appropriating assets from Vietnamese citizens across the country, estimated at over 2 trillion VND.

In particular, using the above tactics, this criminal organization manipulated people's psychology, and within a short period of just 1-2 days, victims in Ho Chi Minh City were swindled out of more than 41 billion VND, and in Vinh City, Nghe An province, victims were also swindled out of up to 15.4 billion VND.

Currently, the Provincial Police Investigation Agency has initiated legal proceedings and detained the suspects on charges of the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property"...while continuing to verify, investigate, clarify, expand the case, and handle the remaining suspects in accordance with the law."