Nghe An: Hundreds of people lost billions of dong playing cards online

Set up hundreds of scam groups

Vinh City Police have just prosecuted and temporarily detained Tran Thi Phuong Thuy (born 1984), residing in Block 2, Truong Thi Ward (Vinh City) for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" prescribed in Clause 4, Article 174 of the Penal Code.

Subject Tran Thi Thuy. Photo: BN

This is a subject with large-scale fraud behavior with many sophisticated tricks. This "monster" thoroughly takes advantage of relationships to lure acquaintances to participate in online gambling groups owned by Thuy.

After gaining the trust of the victims, Thuy used the virtual accounts she created to open auctions. After several auctions, when Thuy's virtual accounts won many times, Thuy declared "breaking the auction" to seize the property.
Typically, on August 8, 2021, Thuy opened a group of 12 participants through her Facebook account. During the process of establishing the group, Thuy did not notify or register with the competent authority and did not organize a meeting of the members of the group. Thuy only joined a chat group via Facebook's Messenger application to discuss and bid for the opening of the group. Of the 12 participants, 2 were virtual accounts created by Thuy.
When she realized that the "prey" had fallen into the trap, Thuy started to conduct the auctions with the amount of 100 million VND/1 bid. Before the auction, each player had to pay Thuy the amount of 2 first bids, equivalent to 200 million VND. Because Thuy was the head of the auction, she would receive the first bid of 1.1 billion VND without having to auction.

Then, Thuy organized a tournament for the participants to collect interest. Whoever bids with the highest interest rate will receive the tournament but must pay interest to the unsuccessful bidder. On August 8, 2021, Thuy organized a tournament to get the second slot in the Facebook chat group. In this slot, the account "Khanh Linh" created and used by Thuy "won" with the highest interest of 7,450,000 VND and received 1.2 billion VND. "Khanh Linh" had to pay interest for the remaining 11 slots with the amount of 7,450,000 VND/slot. Thus, in this second tournament, "Khanh Linh" received 1,118,050,000 VND.

3 days later, on August 11, 2021, Thuy organized a ward auction to get the 3rd place. Each participant had to pay Thuy 92,550,000 VND. The account "Khanh Linh" had already received the 2nd place, so it still had to pay the full amount of 100 million VND without receiving interest from the next auctions. In this auction, the account "Moon Dinh" created and used by Thuy "won" with the highest interest of 4,000,000 VND and was given the 3rd place: 1.2 billion VND - (4 million VND x 10) = 1.16 billion VND.
On August 14, 2021, Thuy organized a ward auction to get the 4th place. Each participant had to pay Thuy 96 million VND. As for the accounts "Khanh Linh" and "Moon Dinh", because they had received the previous ward money, they still had to pay the full amount of 100 million VND without receiving interest from the next auctions. In this auction, the account "Thu Huong Nguyen" won the highest interest of 4,750,000 VND and was awarded the 4th place: 1.2 billion VND - (4,750,000 VND x 9) = 1,157,250,000 VND.

Appropriation of player's propertyi
Just like that, Thuy organized 3 more open auctions. On August 24, 2021, Tran Thi Phuong Thuy declared that she had "broken the auction" and would not organize another auction for participants who had not received the auction money. In this auction, after 7 auctions, the first 3 times Thuy and the virtual accounts she created and used "won the auction". The 4 "winners" in the following auctions were all friends who Thuy had lured to participate with the promise of paying "huge" interest. Of course, after "breaking the auction", Thuy was slow and "stalled" every time you asked to transfer both principal and interest.

Officers of the Criminal Police Team of Vinh City Police took the statement of suspect Tran Thi Phuong Thuy. Photo: BN

Vinh City Police Investigation Agency is expanding the investigation, working with the victim, collecting evidence, and continuing to prove the suspect's criminal behavior.
Talking to reporters, investigators of the Criminal Police Team - Vinh City Police said: Fraud in opening a lottery is not new, but because the tricks of the subjects are very sophisticated, many people still fall into the trap. Moreover, in the epidemic conditions, many people have to do business online or stay at home, with limited income, so they have the mentality of "earning more" from the interest rate of the lottery. Many people who participated in several auctions to open a lottery were suspicious, however, because they had paid a lot of money to the ward, with the mentality of "going in, having to continue", "while there is life, there is hope", the losses kept multiplying with each auction. Only when Thuy declared "the ward collapsed" did many people bitterly and heartbrokenly realize that they had been cheated, even many families fell into a situation of quarrels and discord.
A common situation nowadays is that many people abuse social networks; all information, images, and activities of family and individuals are "uploaded" to Facebook.

Taking advantage of this, scammers have exploited information and created seemingly close relationships to lure victims into traps. The police agency recommends that everyone should be careful when posting information on social networks. In particular, they must absolutely stay away from invitations to join guilds, savings and credit associations, contribute capital, invest in finance, invest in virtual currency, etc.
Currently, the provincial police leadership is directing professional units to continue to investigate and expand the case; focusing on clarifying Tran Thi Phuong Thuy's loan sharking behavior. The police agency informs anyone who is a victim of Tran Thi Phuong Thuy to contact the Criminal Police Team - Vinh City Police to coordinate the investigation.