Sentenced to 21 years in prison for a group of Chinese people who went to Nghe An to hack ATM data to withdraw money

Previously, the People's Court of Nghe An province opened a first-instance criminal trial of the defendants: Duong Truong Tai (Yang Chang Cai, born in 1986), Luyen Vu (Lian Yu, born in 1984) and Dang Thong Thong (Deng Cong Cong, born in 1990), all residing in Jiangxi province, China, for the crime of "Using computer networks, telecommunications networks, and electronic means to commit acts of property appropriation".

At the trial, the defendants confessed that because they had no money to spend, Duong Truong Tai, Luyen Vu, and Dang Thong Thong pooled money to buy skimming equipment, blank ATM cards, and computers in China, then assigned specific tasks when they came to Vietnam to hack ATM data.

3 Chinese defendants in court. Photo: Tran Vu

Accordingly, Thong was the person who installed the skimming device into the keyboard protection panel of the ATM to collect the password input operations of the account owner; the electronic device was used to attach to the top side, inside the card reader slot of the ATM to back up the information when the account owner inserted the ATM.

Luyen Vu was the one who disassembled the device and brought it back to Duong Truong Tai and a Chinese man named Nan Kinh to copy the data into a computer, send it via Wechat software to China to Ly Van so that this person could decode it and then send it back to Tai and Nan Kinh.

Once they have the decoded data, the remaining subjects use card swiping machines to scan data onto blank ATM cards to make fake ATM cards, appropriating assets of customers at banks in Vietnam.

The investigation agency determined that between August 18, 2019 and September 11, 2019, Tai, Vu, and Thong made 316 fake ATM cards, appropriating more than VND 279 million from 29 people.

On September 11, 2019, the suspects Duong Truong Tai, Luyen Vu, and Dang Thong Thong were arrested by Vinh City police. The two ringleaders of the case, Nam Kinh and Ly Van, are still at large.

At court, the defendants honestly confessed their crimes and asked for a lighter sentence so they could soon return to their relatives in their hometown who were waiting for them.

Before the jury, the defendants apologized to the Vietnamese government and the victims in the case. “I feel very remorseful and apologize to the Vietnamese people,” defendant Luyen Vu said before the court.

Before the trial, the two defendants Dang Thong Thong and Duong Truong Tai had already persuaded their relatives to remedy the consequences. However, defendant Luyen Vu had not yet. However, after the panel of judges created favorable conditions for defendant Luyen Vu to contact his relatives and remedy the consequences.

Considering the case comprehensively, the court sentenced: Duong Truong Tai, Luyen Vu, Dang Thong Thong each defendant to 7 years in prison for the crime of "Using computer networks, telecommunications networks, and electronic means to commit acts of property appropriation".