Nghe An police effectively fight high-tech crimes

Lost billions after listening to a call from a "state official"

At the end of 2023, while going to work at the company, Ms. Phan Thi Phu (53 years old, residing in Vinh city) received a call from a strange phone number claiming to be an official working at the Ministry of Information and Communications with the content of notifying that Ms. Phu's phone number and account were related to bad subjects who were using it for money laundering and criminal activities. Because of fear and the simple thought that she had not done anything illegal and believing that the person on the other end of the line was indeed a state official, Ms. Phu listened and followed the instructions of the subjects. After just over a day of following the instructions, Ms. Phu had nearly 1 billion VND deducted from her account.

Ms. Phan Thi Phu recalled: “While I was working, a strange phone number called me, claiming to be a government official investigating a case and saying that my phone number was being used by someone else to launder money for human and drug trafficking criminals. Then, claiming to be a police officer, they forced me to prove whether the money in my account was clean or not by transferring all the money to the subject's account.”

Not long ago, also in the form of listening to calls from a strange phone number claiming to be the Police asking for "investigation cooperation" related to the case, the accounts of 2 people, a man residing in Thai Hoa town and a woman residing in Hung Nguyen district, Nghe An province, also "evaporated" nearly 800 million VND.

In Nghe An, in 2023 alone, the police force discovered, arrested, and handled dozens of cases and hundreds of subjects using high technology to commit crimes. Most recently, the Criminal Police Department presided over and coordinated with relevant units to arrest 50 subjects who are Vietnamese people residing abroad using high technology, impersonating judicial officers to defraud and appropriate property of Vietnamese people in many localities across the country, with an amount of more than 500 billion VND led by 2 subjects Phan Van Phuong (born in 1991), residing in Kim Thanh commune, Yen Thanh district and Tang Quang Vinh (born in 1989), residing in Ward 11, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City.

Sophisticated tricks, people easily "fall into traps"

Reality from the recent eradication projects shows that high-tech crime is a type of "non-traditional" crime, operating in a wide area, regardless of borders and territories, with increasingly sophisticated methods. According to the assessment of the police agency, fighting traditional crime is difficult. Fighting "non-traditional" crime, crime that takes advantage of high technology is many times more difficult, because criminals of this type often have knowledge of information technology, frequently changing their methods of operation to commit crimes.

Typically, in the recent special project to eliminate two high-tech criminal gangs, since July 2023, through the work of grasping the situation, the Criminal Police Department (Nghe An Police) discovered that in Nghe An province, there were a number of subjects and groups with many suspicious signs working for foreign companies to defraud and appropriate property of Vietnamese people in many localities across the country.

The subjects in this company's gang are located in Cambodia and are organized into 3 lines including D1, D2, D3. In which, D1 are the subjects who will act as officers working at functional agencies with the task of calling people according to a pre-prepared list to inform the "prey" about the SIM card being locked, bank account being frozen because the victim is involved with fraud organizations or the account, phone number is being used by fraud organizations for criminal activities.

When the victim believes in the scenario, the D1 subjects will transfer the victim's call to D2 - who claim to be Captain A - Officer of the Police Department of the Ministry of Public Security (or other appropriate unit), informing the victim that his/her identity documents are being used by criminals to commit crimes... (consistent with the content of the D1 call), requesting cooperation in the investigation, threatening to issue an order for temporary detention, an order to freeze the victim's account. When the victim is scared, the subject asks the victim to declare which bank account they are currently using, the assets (savings book, cash, gold, foreign currency, vehicles...) currently available for the authorities to verify, if the victim is not aiding the criminals, they will return them.

After the victim provides information about bank accounts, passwords, etc., this information will be transferred to D3 (the masterminds and leaders of the network). D3 asks the victim to go to the bank to register for electronic banking services, read the login information and OTP codes for the subject, thereby taking over the victim's electronic bank account. Next, the D3 subjects ask the victim to withdraw savings books, borrow money to transfer to the bank account, and then transfer money from the victim's bank account to the subject's bank accounts to take over.

During the entire process of contacting the victim, the subjects always require the victim to stay in an independent, private space, not to let anyone else know about the incident, and to keep in contact regularly to easily manipulate the victim's psychology...

High-tech criminals often create very clear scenarios, with specific assignments of tasks. They often call impersonating Telecommunications, Court, and Police officers to manipulate psychology, coerce, and deceive people. Especially when they take over accounts and personal information, they quickly withdraw people's money.

Lieutenant Colonel Tran Duc Than - Head of Criminal Police Department (Nghe An Police)

Implement many effective measures to fight

Identifying the complex, dangerous and “new” nature of this type of crime, recently the Department of Cyber ​​Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention and Control and the Criminal Police Department, as the main players, have coordinated with the Police of various units and localities to simultaneously deploy many specific and creative solutions.

In order to effectively combat high-tech crimes, in recent times, the Department of Cyber ​​Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention has focused on improving the qualifications of officers and soldiers to master specialized equipment and software; regularly improving knowledge and law, promoting creativity, and applying science and technology in police work. Strengthening propaganda and raising public awareness of new methods and tricks of high-tech crimes, especially online fraud.

Lieutenant Colonel Le Dinh Ha - Deputy Head of Cyber ​​Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention Department (Nghe An Police)

At a recent working session with the Department of Cyber ​​Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention, Major General Bui Quang Thanh - Director of the Provincial Police Department also requested the unit to continue to advise and effectively implement major policies and guidelines of the Party, Government, and Ministry of Public Security on ensuring cyber security. Propagating and warning people about methods and tricks of committing crimes to raise awareness, sense of law compliance and actively participate in crime prevention for the masses, contributing to the good implementation of the movement "All people protect national security".

Proactively do a good job of prevention, grasp the situation, detect and promptly handle incidents related to security and order in cyberspace. Send officers and soldiers to participate in specialized training courses in the field of network security and information security at quality training facilities, thereby completing assigned tasks and responsibilities.

Van Hau - Ho Hung