Losing money playing virtual currency, woman scammed more than 8 billion VND and then fled

On November 5, the Criminal Police Department of Nghe An Province Police announced that the unit had just successfully broken up a case.fraud and appropriation of property, temporarily detained 1 suspect, initially clarified the amount of money embezzled was more than 8 billion VND and many related exhibits.

Previously, on September 16, 2021, the Criminal Police Department, Nghe An Police received a criminal complaint from a citizen residing in Hung Binh Ward, Vinh City, accusing Nguyen Thi Van (born in 1988), residing in Nghia Hoi Commune, Nghia Dan District, of fraud and appropriation of 4.5 billion VND. Using professional measures, on November 1, 2021, the Criminal Police Department investigated, clarified, and arrested Nguyen Thi Van for fraud and property appropriation.

Subject Nguyen Thi Van and text messages exchanged with the victim. Photo: Hong Ngoc

Through investigation, Van confessed: Using high technology, Van created many bank accounts to trick victims into transferring money, then embezzled it.

Accordingly, around the end of 2019, Van borrowed money from many people to participate in some virtual currency exchanges on the internet but lost about 4 billion VND. By September 2020, because she needed money to pay off her debt and continue to invest in virtual currency exchanges, Van came up with the idea of ​​defrauding her acquaintance, Ms. DTL, to take money. Through conversation, Van learned that Ms. L. received bank transfers for those in need to receive service commissions, so Van introduced herself to Ms. L. that she knew many people in business who needed to transfer money to banks continuously, and agreed to pay a service fee of 3,000 VND/million VND of transferred money, and Ms. L. agreed.

Then, Van used 6 bank accounts of relatives to deceive Ms. L. that they were accounts of big businessmen who needed to transfer money continuously and asked Ms. L. to transfer money to Van's 6 accounts. To gain Ms. L.'s trust, Van initially paid the principal and commission fee to Ms. L. in full.

Police force consolidates case file. Photo: Hong Ngoc

After Ms. L. trusted her, Van continuously asked her to transfer money to the 6 accounts managed by Van above and then used the received money to rotate commission payments to other people who sent money to Van, such as Ms. L. In addition, Van also used Ms. L.'s money to continue investing in virtual currency exchanges. With the above tricks, by August 2021, the total amount of money Van asked Ms. L. to transfer and then appropriated was up to 4.5 billion VND. When she knew she could no longer pay the interest and principal, Van turned off her phone, blocked Ms. L.'s phone number and left the motel in Trung Do ward, Vinh city, then returned to her hometown in Nghia Dan district to hide.

In addition to the money she appropriated from Ms. L., Nguyen Thi Van also confessed that using similar methods, Van also defrauded and appropriated a total of more than 8 billion VND from 8 other citizens.