The mutant disguised as a Vietnamese expatriate pulls off some very strange scams.
"The subject has hit the gullible, easy-going psychology of young girls who are fond of the label "Overseas Vietnamese" and have no basis to verify information about the person they are acquainted with" - an investigator of Cau Giay District Police, Hanoi analyzed one of the factors that led to the crime in this case.
Dong Pham Nguyen (born in 1985), from An Nhon, Binh Dinh, is probably the one who deserves to "open" the scam of impersonating overseas Vietnamese with his own unique appearance.
The "Deputy General Director of the bank" is unfortunate in love...
In early November 2017, Ms. Nguyen (30 years old), an office worker in Hanoi, accidentally visited a website specializing in dating, making friends, and finding lovers and was proactively approached by a man who introduced himself as Abbey Nguyen.
This person used a Zalo account named “Abbey Nguyen”, introducing himself to Ms. Nguyen as an Australian of Vietnamese origin, who studied at the University of Economics in Ho Chi Minh City, then moved to Australia to live and work for a large auditing company. With his talent, Abbey Nguyen is being invited by a bank to work as Deputy General Director in Vietnam.
Not only was bragging not enough, Abbey Nguyen also cleverly showed Ms. Nguyen some documents containing the bank representative's record of handing over assets and office to "Deputy General Director" Dong Abbey Nguyen (in fact, these documents were collected from the Internet and then edited).
Then, by “coincidence,” Ms. Nguyen was shown a series of messages from the bank sent to his account with a balance of over 100 billion VND. At the end of the message, Abbey Nguyen showed her the line: “Your account is temporarily locked,” and explained that because the balance in his account was so large, the bank had to regularly lock it to prevent hackers from breaking in and withdrawing money.
Despite having so much money, Abbey Nguyen is very unhappy in love. The proof is that Ms. Nguyen received a message from a Zalo user named "Lam Vu Minh Kieu" who introduced her as Abbey Nguyen's ex-girlfriend.
“Lam Vu Minh Kieu” said that “Abbey Nguyen” studied business administration, was very good at setting up companies, and was gullible, so he was cheated out of money by many people. Still half-believing in the information of “Lam Vu Minh Kieu”, Ms. Nguyen… collapsed when a person using a Viber account named “Pianist” sent her a picture of the 2013 divorce judgment between Dong Abbey Nguyen, also known as Abbey Michael, temporarily residing in Milosie, USA, and a woman named Vo Thi Bich Nuy.
Later, Ms. Nguyen bitterly learned that the messages and images were all made by one person and were cut and edited to "portray" a rich but unlucky Abbey Nguyen. In early December 2017, Abbey Nguyen announced that he would return from Australia to Vietnam to meet Ms. Nguyen.
Rich but short on cash
Excited for the meeting that took place at a coffee shop, then quickly ended at... a hotel, Ms. Nguyen was gradually led into a "maze" by "Overseas Vietnamese" Abbey Nguyen with the ultimate goal of extorting money.
Shortly after saying goodbye to each other to "return home" with sweet promises, Abbey Nguyen texted Ms. Nguyen to urgently borrow money from him because an aunt in Vietnam came to Australia to visit at the same time his account with a surplus of 100 billion VND was locked. Another time, Abbey Nguyen informed that he was at the Australian airport but could not withdraw money from his account in time so he could not return to Vietnam and had to ask Ms. Nguyen to advance him a plane ticket, and would pay him back when his account was reactivated.
The most dramatic time was when Abbey Nguyen used the Facebook account "Dong Nguyen" to text Ms. Nguyen that his ex-wife was kidnapping him to demand his property. From then on, Abbey Nguyen asked Ms. Nguyen to... top up a phone card to help locate his location and come to his rescue.
Those were very “fake” reasons, but it was only later that Ms. Nguyen found out that during those text messages and phone calls, Abbey Nguyen only hung around Hanoi or stayed at Internet cafes. Whenever he ran out of money, he would make up a reason to get money from the foolish girl.
It was not until the amount of money sent to Abbey Nguyen had reached more than 100 million VND and there was still no response from the "Deputy General Director of the bank", that Ms. Nguyen suddenly woke up, went online to find information and was shocked to realize that Abbey Nguyen was the scammer that the online community had warned about.
Overcoming her shame, Ms. Nguyen went to the High-Tech Crime Prevention Police Department, Hanoi City Police Department to report. Using professional measures, the police force quickly tracked down and arrested the scammer, identified as Dong Pham Nguyen, at an Internet cafe in Ha Dong District. When arrested, Nguyen continued to lie that he was in Australia and asked Ms. Nguyen to transfer money to buy a plane ticket to reunite.
Once in prison for labeling overseas Vietnamese as a fraudster
Abbey Nguyen or Dong Pham Nguyen is Vietnamese. With one... deaf ear, one blue eye and one black eye due to heterochromia, and a slurred speech due to... a short tongue, Dong Pham Nguyen has turned those abnormalities into a cover for a Vietnamese expatriate.
Many years before setting the trap to trick Ms. Nguyen, this man had committed a series of daring crimes. That was in 2012, Dong Pham Nguyen went to the headquarters of an animal rescue charity in Ho Chi Minh City, introducing himself as the director of a securities company. He said his father was Australian, his mother was Vietnamese but unfortunately both parents died early.
Because he was an orphan, he sympathized with the unfortunate fates, especially animals. On that visit, Nguyen donated several boxes of dog and cat food to the animal rescue organization, then took the initiative to take pictures with the animals being cared for. Immediately after that, Nguyen used those pictures to create a cover for himself on Facebook as a young director who loves animals and is full of compassion, named James. His two-colored eyes, along with a few photoshopped photos of foreigners to prove his studying and success in Australia, and then returning to work in Vietnam, helped Nguyen play his role brilliantly.
Under that cover, he got to know young girls and tried to steal their money. Nguyen used a fake nickname as a friend to inform them that James had fainted at the Australian airport on his way back to Vietnam and was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had been transferred to a Japanese hospital for surgery. Then, Nguyen texted the girls he had met, asking to borrow money to have brain tumor surgery.
So, without even having time to verify how sick James was, 9 people transferred money to the scammer, including a female student studying abroad in Japan who sent him 180 million VND. The most pitiful was a female student in Vinh Phuc province; after getting to know each other and being proposed to by Nguyen, upon hearing that her boyfriend was sick, the female student took her laptop to a pawn shop and got more than 10 million VND, which she transferred to him.
On November 2, 2012, Dong Pham Nguyen went to a coffee shop in Dich Vong Hau ward, Cau Giay district to receive money for “brain tumor treatment” from a girl he had just met online. The scammer was arrested by the police. For the act of defrauding and appropriating 240 million VND, Dong Pham Nguyen was sentenced to 48 months in prison by the People's Court of Cau Giay district. During the sentence, his sentence was reduced by 3 months, so in mid-2016, Dong Pham Nguyen was released from prison.
Learning from his “experience”, this time, Dong Pham Nguyen did not dare to post real photos on social networks like before. When getting to know the victims, he would chat privately and send photos via text message. If someone did not know about the scam in advance, he would act out the scam to steal their property. And Ms. Nguyen fell into the trap of the super scammer.
In late June 2018, the Investigation Police Department of Cau Giay District, Hanoi completed the investigation into the case of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" against Dong Pham Nguyen; at the same time, the case file was transferred to the People's Procuracy at the same level to propose prosecution for the above crime.