Overseas Vietnamese couple swindled billions by transferring money in Canada

On April 12, Da Nang City Police said that the Criminal Police Department had just prosecuted and temporarily detained the accused Nguyen Ngoc Ly (44 years old, Canadian nationality) and his wife Trinh Thi Huong Nhung (42 years old, permanent residence in Hue City, current residence in Canada) to investigate the act of Fraudulent appropriation of property.

The investigation determined that Mr. Ly and his wife took advantage of the mechanism of banks in Canada, which is that they only need to go to the bank and write a request to transfer money to the recipient's bank account, and the bank will transfer the requester's money to the recipient's account.

At this time, the recipient's bank account will display the amount requested by the transferor, but the recipient will not be able to withdraw the money yet.

After about 5 days, the bank will check the transfer requester's account. If the requested amount is sufficient, the transaction will be successful. If not, the bank will automatically withdraw the previously transferred amount.

Taking advantage of this mechanism, Mr. Ly and his wife appropriated more than 1.5 billion VND from Vietnamese people living in Canada who wanted to transfer Vietnamese money to receive Canadian money.

In early April 2025, when discovering that Mr. Ly had returned to Vietnam, the Criminal Police Department decided to summon him for questioning and at the same time persuaded Ms. Nhung to return from Canada to assist in the investigation.

Police have seized 20 pieces of yellow metal and frozen VND940 million in related bank accounts.