Beware of scams on social networks

Nhu Xuan district police temporarily detained a fleet of "super cars" in a securities fraud and money laundering ring.

The common methods and tricks that criminals are using today are to fraudulently recruit sales collaborators to receive commissions; online financial investment; through online exchange and purchase and sale activities; updating electronic identification data, exam data; impersonating police officers, prosecutors, banks; hacking social network accounts to impersonate relatives to commit fraud...

Recently, two subjects Nguyen Cong Chanh Hung and Nguyen Thanh Dong, both residing in Trieu Phong district, Quang Tri province, defrauded and appropriated nearly 1.5 billion VND from Ms. LTV, born in 1963, residing in Ha Trung town (Ha Trung) by using the trick of impersonating a relative's Facebook account, causing the victim to lose her vigilance.

After being arrested and investigated by Thanh Hoa Provincial Police, the two subjects confessed that they had gone online to learn and practice fraud by creating fake Facebook accounts of Vietnamese people living and doing business abroad, then using the fake accounts to contact their relatives and request money transfers. To carry out the fraud, the subjects bought phones, junk SIM cards, created fake Facebook accounts, then contacted the victims to commit fraud, requesting money transfers to the account numbers provided by the subjects. At the same time, they contacted telegram groups with money laundering activities to receive bank accounts for the victims to transfer money, cutting a 15% commission fee.

Similarly, in early February 2025, the police of Nhu Xuan district discovered that the foreign exchange trading floor “Fnory.com” had signs of defrauding customers to appropriate assets. Through investigation and verification, the Investigation Police Agency of Thanh Hoa Provincial Police established a special project to successfully combat and eradicate the case, with a total estimated amount of seized assets of more than 200 billion VND.

With the trick of "setting up" an illegal stock exchange called "Fnory.com", the subjects built a network of employees in a multi-level manner, using social networks such as Facebook, Zalo, and Telegram to advertise, invite, and entice customers to participate in investing with the promise of high interest rates, quick profits, and financial experts to advise through a closed Zalo group.

During the solicitation process, the suspects provided false information such as introducing the exchange as a British exchange, legal, high-profit investment... When customers participate, they will be put into closed groups, the system of employees pretending to be financial experts will advise, call out orders to make customers trust and buy and sell until they lose all the money they deposited to buy securities...

One of the reasons why people are easily “trapped” by fraud when investing in finance is because virtual trading floors have very professional interfaces, even identical to real trading floors. The operations of placing orders, locking orders, and account balance fluctuations are all updated continuously. However, from a technical perspective, this is something that can be done very simply at a low cost and without requiring too much programming experience.

Mr. Ha Minh Thuy, information technology lecturer, FPT Polytechnic College (Thanh Hoa City), said: "Creating a website is very simple, only need about 30 dollars to own a very complete website template, very professional looking. However, fake websites often do not have security certificates. In addition, the website is programmed by humans, so they can change the value of transactions arbitrarily and easily."

Thus, with the development of artificial intelligence and cyber attack tools, scammers can easily create scam scenarios that are difficult for ordinary people to detect. Meanwhile, authorities face many obstacles in tracking scammers because transactions are often conducted online, paid via applications... along with the transnational nature of cyberspace, making investigation and coordination between authorities difficult.

Since the beginning of the year, through professional measures, Thanh Hoa Provincial Police have discovered, verified, fought and handled 80 cases of posting false news and spreading bad and toxic information on cyberspace. Along with that, dozens of cases of fraud and property appropriation on cyberspace have also been cracked down with large sums of money.

To protect themselves from the risks of fraud in cyberspace, the police agency recommends that people need to be extremely vigilant against fraudulent tricks to appropriate property; absolutely do not access strange links, do not provide personal information, bank account numbers to unknown subjects; be cautious with messages asking to borrow money, exchange money, transfer money via Facebook... If you suspect anything unusual, you need to immediately report to the nearest police agency for timely guidance and handling.

Article and photos: Linh Huong

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/canh-giac-truoc-cac-chieu-tro-nbsp-lua-dao-tren-mang-xa-hoi-250283.htm