Previously, the Criminal Police Department of Cầu Giấy District, in cooperation with various units of the Ministry of Public Security and the city police, discovered a transnational fraud ring appropriating assets through foreign exchange and stock trading platforms led by two individuals: Phó Đức Nam (alias Mr. Pips from Vũng Tàu) and Lê Khắc Ngọ (alias Mr. Hunter from Hanoi).
Authorities have issued a decision to prosecute the case and the defendants, including Phó Đức Nam, born in 1994, residing in Ward 8, Vũng Tàu City, Bà Rịa – Vũng Tàu Province; Lê Khắc Ngọ, born in 1990, residing in Phú Diễn Ward, Bắc Từ Liêm District, Hanoi, and 24 other defendants for the crimes of “Fraudulent appropriation of assets”, “Failure to report crimes”, and “Money laundering” under Articles 174, 390, and 324 of the Penal Code.
Initial investigations revealed that in June 2019, Phó Đức Nam conspired with Lê Khắc Ngọ to establish a fraud ring to appropriate assets, modeled after brokerage firms.
To lure people into fraud, the suspects disguised themselves as a company and a website operating in the fields of Tele Marketing (marketing and promoting products via phone), Tele Sales (consulting and selling via phone), financial investment consulting, and stock brokerage (investing in stocks of multinational brands operating on international stock exchanges, such as Facebook, Apple, Pepsi, Microsoft, Adidas) to entice customers to participate.
The suspects set up the website “artexvina.co” to recruit employees, building an image of a professional and systematic company in the field of international stock investment consulting. Subsequently, Nam and Ngọ used their team to approach, advise, and invite customers to invest. At the same time, this group of defendants established branches nationwide, mainly focusing on Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Da Nang, and Cambodia.
Preliminary findings indicate that Phó Đức Nam and his accomplices used numerous “phantom” company accounts and e-wallets to receive money from customers, luring them into private chat groups, guiding victims on how to deposit and withdraw money skillfully to build trust, and then advising them to place large orders, encouraging further deposits, using leverage to quickly deplete the victims’ accounts (losing all their money). When the victims had lost all their money, the suspects would continue to invite them to participate in a new platform with more attractive offers, promising to win back the lost money, in order to continue appropriating the victims’ assets.
To carry out their criminal activities, Phó Đức Nam and Lê Khắc Ngọ organized and established various departments (IT department, support department, administrative department, security department, etc.) and provided thorough training within the system.
During the emergency search of the suspects’ residences and workplaces, investigators seized and froze the assets of the suspects valued at over 5 trillion VND, including: 127 billion VND in cash, savings books amounting to approximately 306 billion VND, 216 kg of gold, 128 real estate properties, 30 vehicles of various types, frozen 9 billion VND in bonds, and many other valuable assets.
Minh Ngọc (t/h)