Female merchant falls into trap of 19 year old girl

On August 27, 2021, Do Luong District Police said that the unit is temporarily detaining Pham Thi Ha, born in 2002, residing in Hamlet 2, Trang Son Commune, Do Luong District, for investigation.fraudulent appropriation of property.

Previously, in early August 2021, Do Luong District Police discovered a number of subjects using the internet, creating many social network accounts (Facebook, Zalo), impersonating relatives and friends to borrow money for the purpose of fraud and property appropriation.

Also during this time, Do Luong District Police received complaints from local people about being scammed online. In response to this situation, the District Police proactively verified and clarified the methods, tricks, and rules of operation of the criminals and set up a special project to fight them.

Subject Nguyen Thi Ha. Photo: Binh Nguyen

Using professional measures, Do Luong District Police quickly identified Pham Thi Ha, residing in Hamlet 2, Trang Son Commune, Do Luong District, as the subject who committed fraud to appropriate tens of millions of VND. On August 22, 2021, the Task Force issued an emergency arrest warrant for Pham Thi Ha. Searching Ha, the police seized 01 mobile phone, 5,000,000 VND, and many other evidences related to the subject's fraudulent activities. At the Investigation Agency, Ha admitted all of her crimes.

Accordingly, through the social network Facebook, the subject Ha noticed that Ms. Nguyen Thi T. (a merchant at Do Luong commercial market) often used her Facebook account to post pictures and sell aquatic and seafood products. Through investigation, Ha noticed that a Facebook account "Hoai My" often commented and ordered products from Ms. T.

From the information from Facebook, Ha directly researched the identity, history, and relationships of the person with the Facebook account "Hoai My". After finding out the information, Ha used his personal phone to create a new Facebook account named "Hoai My". Ha updated the information and photos identical to the "official" Facebook account mentioned above.

After that, Ha took the initiative to make friends with Ms. T.'s Facebook account to interact and talk. Ha took the initiative to text Ms. T. to ask about her health and order seafood products. Realizing that the Facebook account was similar to a regular customer, and that she had ordered and chatted intimately many times, Ms. T. began to trust the Facebook account created by Ha.

When she felt that Ms. T. had taken the bait, Ha began placing orders worth tens of millions of dong and then asked for payment by bank transfer. The time when Ha placed orders and transferred money often fell on weekends - days when the banking system was closed.

Part of the content of Ha's scam message sent to the victims. Photo: Binh Nguyen

During the transfer process, Ha often gave reasons such as working far away, her family in the locality needed cash so she transferred money to Ms. T. to give cash to relatives to pick up. To carry out the fraud, Pham Thi Ha used her personal phone to download images of successful transfer transactions of Agribank, MB,... on the internet. Then she used photo editing and collage software to create images that looked like a successful transfer to Ms. T's account.

To increase trust, Ha proactively sent the above edited images to Ms. T. When Ms. T. reported that she had not received the money, Ha explained that because the transfer was made to another bank and on the weekend, she might receive it on Monday. Because of trust, Ms. T. gave the money to the person Pham Thi Ha asked to pick it up.

During the investigation, the Task Force initially determined that Pham Thi Ha had committed fraud and appropriated property from the victim Nguyen Thi T. in the amount of 45,000,000 VND.

With the collected documents and evidence, the Investigation Police Agency of Do Luong District Police has decided to temporarily detain Pham Thi Ha to continue investigating and expanding the case./.