Love trap scam billions on facebook

They are no longer young girls blinded by sweet love 'seductions', but the women in this article are all mature people who are still blinded by the 'love trap' of transnational criminals.

It is shocking that a woman is willing to send more than 2 billion VND to a stranger on Facebook like a moth to a flame. This is not only a rare victim of a love scam on Facebook, but this absurd story has happened to many victims across the country.

Lost 2.2 billion VND for "virtual people" working in the "US army"

One day at the end of May, under the scorching heat of the mining area, we went to the Quang Ninh Provincial Police Detention Center to meet Tran Thi Bich Tuyen, residing in Binh Ninh Hamlet, Binh Phu Commune, Go Cong Tay, Tien Giang, who was arrested for "fraudulent appropriation of property" - one of the important "links" in the transnational fraud ring that had just been arrested by the Economic Police Department (Quang Ninh Provincial Police).

Although she is 35 years old, her appearance and inner self are far beyond her age, extremely shrewd and experienced in life. She has no regrets about the plot and trickery when she and her accomplices set up a sweet "love trap" online. She speaks decisively, her face showing callousness. When talking about the tricks of setting up a group of "prey" to trick the "prey" out of over 2 billion VND, she shows no regrets.

When talking about this victim, even the officers who investigated the case could not help but be "shocked" by the unbelievable gullibility of the victim. When investigating the case, we were also surprised and asked: why could a woman of nearly 50 years old trust someone so blindly and without any basis.

Some people even say that even children cannot believe this scam, so why can it fool many women who are no longer impulsive, and are willing to throw the target a huge amount of money that is hard to imagine in their dreams...

According to the Economic Police Department, they received a report from Ms. Dang Thi M, born in 1968, residing in Ha Long City, informing that in April 2017, a man using the Facebook account "Patrick Paul" made friends with her. Knowing that he was a foreigner and often surfing Facebook, Ms. M accepted the invitation.

Ms. M was also surprised when this person "chatted" with her in Vietnamese, but after that she did not question it anymore. This person told her that he is currently working in the "US army" stationed in Afghanistan.

Subject Tran Thi Bich Tuyen confessed at the investigation agency.

After chatting back and forth, seeing that he spoke quite gently and thoughtfully, and asked about her with concern, Ms. M gradually felt closer. After a while, Patrick Paul revealed to Ms. M that he had been given 1.2 million USD by the US security agency and asked her to receive it in Vietnam to avoid taxes, and at the same time wanted to use this money to support Ms. M in her life.

With sweet words that lulled her to sleep, Ms. M was moved to accept. After gaining Ms. M's trust, the subject obtained information such as phone number, date of birth, address, and account number of Ms. M. At the same time, Patrick Paul told her that he had transferred the gift through a money transfer company and promised that someone would contact her and bring it to her home in about 3 days.

With his sweet flirting words, Ms. M seemed to fall into a "dream". She believed everything Patrick Paul said was true, even the "sky-high" amount of money that fell on her head was real. She did as he said without taking the time to consider its absurdity.

On May 3, a woman with a southern accent called Ms. M and introduced herself as Hien Thu, but it was actually Tran Thi Bich Tuyen. Tuyen pretended to be Hien Thu, an employee at Tan Son Nhat airport, and informed her that she had a gift sent from abroad and asked her to pay money to receive the gift. Because she trusted Paul and did not suspect anything, Ms. M transferred money to the BIDV Tay Ninh branch account under the name of Ngo Thi Anh Thu, amounting to hundreds of millions of dong.

But a few days later, the same female voice called her, saying that the goods had a small problem and had not yet reached the airport, and to pay customs fees, she had to pay another 300 million. At this time, with Paul's encouragement, Ms. M believed this reason was true, and went to the bank to transfer money.

Like a young girl who trusted Paul, Ms. M happily transferred the money. But things did not stop there, with sweet words, Ms. M transferred the money 3 more times to Hien Thu. Thus, the total amount of money she transferred to Hien Thu's account 5 times was 2,219,727,700 VND.

Each time they transferred money, the subjects gave different reasons such as: paying shipping fees, airport customs fees, and lawyer fees to make documents to prove that the money was clean because the amount of money sent in the gift package was very large. But half a month passed without receiving the gift, and the 1.2 million dollars was also nowhere to be found. When she went online to look for Paul, she found that he had disappeared. Only then did Ms. M realize that she had fallen into a scam.

Love traps targeting rich women

Identifying this as a transnational fraud ring, with close collusion between foreigners and some subjects living in Vietnam, mainly concentrated in the southern provinces with the method of using Facebook social network and WhatsApp messaging and calling software, the High-Tech Crime Prevention Team, Economic Police Department of Quang Ninh Provincial Police has established a project, sent a working group to coordinate with the Southern Professional Departments of the Ministry of Public Security and the Police of some localities to apply professional measures, screen and screen subjects to urgently investigate and clarify the fraudulent behavior of the subjects in this ring.

In a short time, the detectives saw that Tran Thi Bich Tuyen - a homeless person who had just moved to Chi Do hamlet, Binh Dong commune, Go Cong district, Tien Giang province - had many suspicious signs.

Subjects Micheal IkeChukwu Leonard and Huynh Ha Binh.

Using professional measures, detectives identified Tuyen as the subject who specialized in impersonating delivery staff, Tan Son Nhat airport staff and was one of the important subjects in the network, so a plan was made to arrest him.

Initially, Tuyen confessed that in 2015, he played a rotating savings and loan sharking game, which led to bankruptcy, so he fled the area and then left for Malaysia. During his time there, Tuyen met a number of Vietnamese people living in Malaysia.

They gave Tuyen information about Ms. M and Tuyen returned to Vietnam, pretending to be a delivery person or airport staff, calling and texting to ask Ms. M to transfer money. While Tuyen was committing the crime, she was discovered and arrested by the police.

Tuyen also confessed that she had used the same tricks as above many times, from the beginning of 2017 until now, she had defrauded money and property of many other victims across the country and received 40,000,000 VND from the subjects.

According to the Economic Police Department, before Ms. M, the unit had received reports from 3 other victims residing in Ha Long, Cam Pha and Ba Che who were scammed by a number of subjects using similar tricks with a total amount of money stolen of 1,242,200,000 VND. The investigation agency confiscated 2 mobile phones from Tuyen used to contact the victims. The money that the victims deposited in the banks provided by the subjects were accounts that they hired others to set up. After setting up, the subjects used and transferred to other accounts.

They mainly withdraw money abroad and in the border provinces in the Southwest border area, so the investigation and verification process encountered many difficulties. However, with the spirit of serving the people, although the investigation and verification process had to go to many places, the subjects lived a vagrant life, but with their dedicated efforts in their work, the officers and soldiers of the High-Tech Crime Prevention Police Team have created trust among the people.

According to analysis, the scammer went online to find middle-aged women with assets and troubled marriages, then pretended to be foreigners and used "love traps" to lure them out of large sums of money.

Many victims are people in Quang Ninh province and some other localities who have been taken advantage of through social networks to give money to scammers of billions of dong. Previously, in 2016, the Economic Police Department of Quang Ninh Province Police also discovered a fraud case via Facebook with similar tricks as above.

The ringleader is a black man of Nigerian nationality. From September 2015 to February 2016, Ms. Phan Thi H, residing in Ha Long city, was defrauded of 701,694,900 VND; Ms. Bui Ai X, residing in Tien Yen district, was defrauded of 185,800,000 VND and Ms. Cao Phuong L, residing in Cam Pha city, was defrauded of 183,700,000 VND.

After establishing a project and coordinating with many professional units of the Ministry of Public Security, the Economic Police Department arrested a transnational fraud crime ring, led by Michael IkeChukwu Leonard, 44 years old, Nigerian nationality, and three Vietnamese accomplices, Huynh Ha Binh, Huynh Ha Uyen, Nguyen Tran Quynh Nhi, residing in Ho Chi Minh City, for "using computer networks, telecommunications networks, and the Internet to commit fraud and appropriate property".

Despite warnings and propaganda on mass media, many women still fall into the trap. According to Quang Ninh Provincial Police, this scam is increasing and becoming more complicated, so people must be extremely vigilant, absolutely do not trust and listen to the subject. When suspicious, immediately report to the nearest police station.

According to CAND