Police warn of fraud and property appropriation on cyberspace

On March 15, 2022, Nghe An Provincial Police issued Official Dispatch No. 531/CV-CAT-PA05 warning about some methods and tricks of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" on cyberspace.

Recently, the authorities have increased propaganda and notification of the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" via the Internet and telecommunications networks to cadres, civil servants, public employees, workers and people to know and prevent. However, taking advantage of the confusion and lack of understanding during the complicated Covid-19 epidemic and the gullibility and greed of the victims, the above crime has become more complicated with more cunning and sophisticated methods and tricks. In order to do a good job of preventing the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" via the Internet and telecommunications networks, the Provincial Police announced a number of tricks of this crime that have emerged recently so that the provincial departments, branches, sectors, unions and People's Committees of districts, cities and towns can notify, recommend, disseminate and widely propagate to cadres, civil servants, public employees, workers and the masses to be vigilant:

1. Some methods and tricks that have recently emerged of the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" in cyberspace

1.1. Tricks of impersonating people with positions and authority to commit fraud, especially impersonating police officers, prosecutors, courts...

Subject Vu Anh Tuan (born 1985), residing in Dang Son commune (Do Luong) impersonated a police officer and defrauded and appropriated property in Anh Son and Con Cuong districts. Photo courtesy

Despite being warned and widely publicized by the authorities, many victims still trust and transfer money to scammers. The modus operandi of this type of crime is mainly to use phone numbers other than Vietnamese phone numbers (+84) to call the victims directly. Then, the subjects use many different scenarios such as: Pretending to be a post office employee calling to notify of receiving mail; telecommunications staff calling to notify of debt; electricity staff calling to notify of debt, threatening to cut off the electricity; traffic police calling to notify of fines, causing accidents and fleeing; violating Covid-19 prevention and control...

They contact victims to exploit personal information, then use that information to fake arrest warrants and prosecutions from the police to threaten victims (usually informing victims that they are involved in transnational drug trafficking and money laundering), asking victims to transfer money to accounts provided by them to serve the investigation, then appropriating or asking victims to register a bank account themselves, transfer money to that account, then provide the account, password, OTP code to the subjects, then they withdraw money from the account to appropriate. During the process of talking to people, the subjects often ask people to keep the phone on continuously, find a private place to talk and ask people not to disclose this information to anyone.

1.2. Tricks to recruit "Online collaborators" to defraud and appropriate property

The report and one of many money transfer information of Ms. Tran LA (Que Phong) because she believed the invitation to join as an online sales collaborator and lost 60 million VND. Photo for reference

Recruitment fraud“Online sales collaborator”has appeared for a long time, however, recently, subjects have taken advantage of the form of hiring people to place virtual orders to increase the number of orders, receive good reviews on e-commerce platforms such as Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, Sendo,...

The subjects used attractive "bait" such as: Buying directly but not receiving the goods (scammers call it increasing the rate of interaction with the purchase of the product), the purchase will be made by bank transfer through the bank account provided by the subject. Each successful purchase will receive a commission of 10 - 20% of the original amount of each order, the money will be transferred back after 5 - 10 minutes of successful order (including both the original amount and commission).

Initially, to create trust and stimulate the greed of the victim, the subjects will provide a link on the Shopee, Lazada, Tiki system... of a product worth about 1 million to 2 million VND and a personal bank account provided by the subject for the victim to transfer money with an amount corresponding to the value on the system. Immediately after that, the subjects will transfer money back to the victim as agreed. When the victim has "taken the bait" and transferred an amount of money up to several tens of millions, the subjects will no longer transfer money back and give many different reasons for the victim to continue to "take the bait" such as: The task is completed with 95/100 credit points, need to continue transferring money to complete 100 points... and many people continue to transfer money and are scammed out of several hundred million VND.

2. Some ways to recognize and prevent

With the trick of impersonating people with positions and powers to commit fraud: According to the law, when working with people, state agencies (Police, Procuracy, Court, Tax, Customs...), companies and businesses all have letters of introduction, invitations or meet directly to discuss work and there are no regulations on calling to request money transfers. Therefore, all phone calls claiming to be from authorities investigating, resolving cases, incidents, customs, taxes announcing gifts or businesses announcing winning prizes... and then requesting money transfers into accounts are at risk of fraud and appropriation of property. In addition, according to regulations, banks do not require customers to provide account information, bank cards, e-wallets, OTP codes or any personal information of customers via email/text messages or phone calls.

People need to be wary of strange links to avoid losing money in the bank. Photo: Internet

With the trick of recruiting "Online collaborators" to defraud and appropriate property: Online collaborator recruitment posts often appear in advertisements on social networking sites such as Facebook, Zalo,... When companies, organizations and e-commerce platforms have a need to recruit jobs or recruit collaborators, they will widely announce on mass media or through the websites of those companies and organizations. Therefore, job recruitment posts in general and online collaborator recruitment posts in particular have the risk of defrauding and appropriated property.

3. Some important recommendations

To proactively combat and prevent this type of crime, the Provincial Police recommend the following measures:

- Do not click on strange links, absolutely do not provide bank account information to any individual or organization through calls, links sent by email/text. If relatives or friends text to borrow money through social networks, call that person directly to verify the correct information before transferring money.

- Do not provide the OTP code provided by the bank or delete Smart OTP authentication settings to anyone;

Official dispatch warning about some methods and tricks of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" on cyberspace by Nghe An Provincial Police.

- Regularly check and update security and privacy features on bank accounts and social network accounts; do not lend or rent related personal documents, do not accept bank transfers or receive money transfers from banks for strangers;

- When detecting an incident with signs of law violation, it is necessary to inform the police to serve the verification, investigation and clarification work.

Above are some methods and tricks of the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" via the Internet and telecommunications networks. The Provincial Police informs the provincial departments, branches, sectors, unions and People's Committees of districts, cities and towns to be proactive in prevention work to help cadres, civil servants, public employees, workers and the masses grasp information, contributing to ensuring security and order in the province.

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