Dozens of women had their money stolen while shopping on Facebook.

Having discovered a Facebook page selling goods online that was very popular, Duc Anh created a fake account. Then, with a few persuasive words, this young man and his accomplices easily swindled hundreds of millions of dong.

During the trial on September 25th, both defendants sincerely pleaded guilty as charged in the indictment. Their statements were entirely consistent with the victims' testimonies and the evidence collected by the police. Therefore, the Hanoi City People's Court's first-instance panel affirmed that the defendants had committed the crime of "Using computer networks, telecommunication networks, the Internet, or digital devices to appropriate property."

Based on the above assessment, the Hanoi Court sentenced Nguyen Duc Anh (born in 1994) and Nguyen The Dung (born in 1993), both residing in Bach Cu village, Ninh Khang commune, Hoa Lu district, Ninh Binh province, to 5 years and 3 years imprisonment respectively, according to the charges brought against them. The victims of these two individuals, who were quite adept at information technology, were dozens of women, mainly residing in Hanoi.

Defendant Nguyen Duc Anh (on the right) and his accomplices at the court.

One day in late November 2014, while browsing the internet at a game arcade in Ninh Binh, Nguyen Duc Anh discovered a Facebook account named "Mai Thao Bong" belonging to Trinh Thu Huyen (residing in Hanoi) selling handbags and shoes, attracting many female customers. A "brilliant idea" flashed through his mind, and he immediately created a fake Facebook account using an email address.[email protected].

To gain the victim's trust, Duc Anh copied all the information from Ms. Huyen's real Facebook account and pasted it onto the fake Facebook account he created. He then added misleading messages, claiming that due to technical issues, the owner of the real Facebook account had to move online sales to a new address.

Mistakenly believing that the real owner of the handbag and shoe shop had moved his business address, dozens of women immediately placed online orders with Duc Anh. Then, whenever a customer clicked to order an item, the perpetrator would demand a deposit upfront, via bank account.

When the unsuspecting women deposited their money into the bank, Duc Anh would either directly or indirectly withdraw it using ATM cards, thus misappropriating the funds. Using this method, by the end of March 2015, Nguyen Duc Anh had defrauded 10 women of a total of over 120 million VND.

Although Nguyen The Dung did not directly defraud the victims, he actively assisted the mastermind. Specifically, he borrowed bank accounts and ATM cards from many acquaintances and gave them to Duc Anh to withdraw money from various banks that the victims had transferred.

According to Hanoi Security