Woman was scammed out of 100 million VND on the phone

After receiving a phone call from scammers pretending to be Dong Nai Province Police, a woman believed them and transferred 500 million VND to their account. Shortly after, the victim discovered that she had been scammed out of 100 million VND.

The victim was Ms. Pham Thi Huong (58 years old, residing in Loc Phat ward, Bao Loc city, Lam Dong province). On the morning of July 25, Ms. Huong said that at around 9:00 a.m. on July 21, a woman claiming to be a Dong Nai Provincial Police officer called Ms. Huong.

This woman said that Ms. Huong was involved in a drug trafficking ring worth tens of billions of dong. Specifically, two people involved in this ring were arrested by Dong Nai police. Immediately after being arrested, these two people confessed that Ms. Huong was also involved. "The strange woman impersonating a police officer knew my name, home address, and ID number," Ms. Huong added.

Ms. Huong presents the case - Photo: Kim Nguyen

According to Ms. Huong, when talking, the woman confirmed that Ms. Huong had about 3 billion VND in her bank account. Ms. Huong denied and said that she had just sold land and that her account only had 500 million VND. After talking to Ms. Huong, the woman passed the phone to another man and said that he was her boss.

Here, the man who introduced himself as Tran Huu Binh - Dong Nai Provincial Police Investigation Team told Ms. Huong: "We have received information that you are in a group of people subject to an emergency arrest warrant, an arrest warrant before 11 o'clock the same day. We ask you to transfer 500 million VND to a SacomBank account number under the name of Pham Minh Duong to serve the investigation and instruct you not to disclose the case to anyone" - Ms. Huong recounted.

According to Ms. Huong, when she heard the subjects speak, because the subjects impersonating the authorities knew Ms. Huong's personal information, she was afraid that the police would come to her house to arrest her, ask her to transfer money to serve the investigation and then return it... so Ms. Huong believed the subjects and went to Agribank to withdraw the 500 million VND that she had previously deposited and transferred the entire amount to an account number under the name of Pham Minh Duong. During the process of contacting the subjects, they continuously called Ms. Huong on 20 phone numbers and asked her to keep in touch and not turn off her phone.

After transferring the money, in the afternoon of the same day, Ms. Huong suspected that she had been scammed by people impersonating police officers, so she reported the entire incident to Bao Loc City Police.

On the same morning, Major Tran Minh Hoat (Deputy Captain of the Investigation Police Team of Bao Loc City Police) said: “After hearing Ms. Huong recount the incident in which she was defrauded by subjects impersonating police officers, Bao Loc City Police coordinated with related units to freeze the account number under the name of Pham Minh Duong. Here, the unit discovered that out of the total 500 million VND that Ms. Huong transferred, the subjects withdrew 100 million VND.”

According to Major Hoat, this is a very sophisticated fraud case, using high technology to make people lose their vigilance. This incident happened for the first time in Bao Loc City.

Regarding the above incident, Bao Loc City Police are expanding the investigation. In addition, propaganda and warning work for local people... has been actively implemented by local authorities.

According to Ho Chi Minh City police