From victim to fraudster

Yen Thanh District Police (Nghe An) has just issued a decision to prosecute the case and prosecute the defendant Duong Xuan Nhuong (born in 1983), residing in Phuc Thanh Commune, Yen Thanh District, for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property".

From the victim…

Accordingly, in October 2023, Nhuong received a message from a Facebook account named "Nguyen Thuy Trang" who introduced herself as a fellow villager. After a period of texting and chatting, Nhuong was lured by this Facebook account to do online work on the website ozon.vin by depositing money into the account as requested by the subjects, promising to perform tasks, distribute goods online and receive commission from the amount deposited as required by the system.

With extremely sophisticated messaging and luring methods, very good psychological manipulation, the trick to lure the "prey" is that in the first deposits, the subjects all pay commission to Nhuong, and the "capital" amount, the subjects display the numbers on the ozon.vin page exactly as the amount deposited so that Nhuong does not suspect and believes that the numbers displayed on the page are his money and can be withdrawn at any time. About the first 2, 3 orders, the subjects "let" the "prey eat", by the 3rd, 4th orders onwards, when the amount increases and promises to pay higher commissions, at this time the subjects "kill" the prey, with the mentality that if they do not deposit, they will lose the amount deposited. When the total deposit amount reached more than 130 million VND, Nhuong could not afford to deposit any more money, so his account on the system was locked. At that time, Nhuong realized that he had been scammed and had his property appropriated.

...become a scammer

Having lost all the money he had paid, Nhuong knew he would never get it back because the subjects were all in the "dark". In the following days, wanting to get the money he had lost, Nhuong came up with the idea of ​​cooperating with these subjects to scam his relatives and friends. Nhuong set a condition with the subjects that he would be tasked with finding and gaining the trust of the "prey", and the subjects would have to share the profits with Nhuong. After negotiating, discussing, and agreeing on how to coordinate, from words, actions, and specific introductions to scam others, Nhuong began to look for "prey" who were his friends, targeting those who had a lot of money and were able to borrow money.

The first victim that Nhuong targeted was his close friend, Mr. L. D. L. (residing in Phuc Thanh commune, Yen Thanh district, Nghe An). Nhuong connected his close friend to Facebook "Nguyen Thuy Trang" so that the subjects could easily trap him. Still using the old trick of doing online work on the website ozon.vin, after many times of performing tasks, the amount of money that Mr. L. D. L. deposited had reached several hundred million VND, then Facebook "Nguyen Thuy Trang" locked the account, and all the money was appropriated. After realizing that he had been scammed, Mr. L. D. L. reported it to the Yen Thanh District Police.

Identifying this as a form of cyber fraud with a sophisticated and complex form, the subjects communicated with each other via fake Facebook and Telegram application. After finishing texting, the subjects deleted all messages exchanged with each other. To combat this, Yen Thanh District Police established a special project, focused forces and professional measures to verify and clarify.

The task force determined that Duong Xuan Nhuong was an extremely important link in solving the case; at the same time, it was also necessary to connect and focus on expanding the investigation of the entire case. However, Nhuong was a subject with many tricks, often absent from the area, and had mysterious whereabouts. In order for the subject to bow his head and admit his guilt, it was necessary to focus on applying many professional measures in parallel, collecting key documents before proceeding to solve the case.

On December 21, 2023, the Investigation Team arrested Duong Xuan Nhuong. With undeniable evidence, Nhuong bowed his head and admitted his guilt. Initially, the police determined that the amount of money Mr. L.D.L was defrauded of was 452 million VND. The amount of money that Duong Xuan Nhuong benefited from defrauding Mr. L.D.L was 80 million VND. According to the statement, Nhuong spent all of this money for personal use.

Currently, the Investigation Police Agency of Yen Thanh District Police has issued a decision to prosecute the case and prosecute Duong Xuan Nhuong for the crime of “Fraud and appropriation of property”. At the same time, the case is being further investigated to arrest the remaining subjects.