Impersonating a police officer, forcing a male student to stage a kidnapping and demand ransom
The subjects impersonated police officers to force a male student to stage a kidnapping and then demanded that his family pay a ransom of 50 million VND.
On May 30, Major Ho Ngoc Son - Head of Pho Chau Town Police (Huong Son District, Ha Tinh Province) said that the unit had just successfully prevented a high-tech fraud case that occurred in the area.
Previously, on the afternoon of May 29, NCH (born in 2008, residing in Pho Chau town) suddenly received a phone call from a stranger, saying that there was an undelivered order, and asked to be friends on the social network Zalo to send a photo of the order.
Immediately after making friends on Zalo, the subject proactively video called H. The video content was a person in police uniform questioning another subject. The subject being questioned confessed that H. was involved in a drug trafficking ring.
After that, H. received a picture of the "arrest warrant" for herself along with many threats not to tell anyone, or else she would be arrested immediately. The subject asked H. to bring her ID card, cell phone, and laptop to a motel in Pho Chau town to work secretly.
Out of fear, H. followed the subjects' requests. At the motel, the subjects manipulated her psychologically, forcing H. to share her screen, log into social media accounts such as: zalo, messenger, bank accounts... to check whether H. was involved in the case or not. After checking, the subjects asked H. to pay money to the investigation agency to prove her innocence.
To have money to pay, the subjects instructed H. to borrow money through Apple ID (ICloud account of Iphone). After borrowing 3.2 million VND, H. transferred the entire amount to a bank account provided by the subjects. Not stopping there, the subjects continued to ask H. to cooperate in faking a kidnapping to trick her parents into paying a ransom of 50 million VND to be released. The subjects composed a sample text message, asked H. to send to her parents and continuously urged the family to transfer money.
Immediately after receiving the report from H.'s family, Pho Chau Town Police promptly stopped the money transfer and started searching for H. After a short time, they found H. in a motel in the area. Pho Chau Town Police took him to the headquarters, discussed and explained to H. and his family that this was a scam by high-tech criminals.
In addition, H.'s phone was completely locked because she had logged into the subjects' Icloud account. The group contacted H. again and asked her to pay 6 million 300 thousand VND in compensation to unlock her phone. Pho Chau town police instructed H. not to follow the subjects' requests.
After seeing their son again and not losing the money, H's family was very happy and sent their thanks to Pho Chau Town Police.