Hacking personal Facebook accounts to scam people into transferring money.
On November 28, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court held a first-instance trial and sentenced the defendants Le Hai Long (36 years old) to 12 years in prison; Cao Tran Duy Han (24 years old) to 8 years in prison; Mai Nhat Minh (22 years old) to 3 years and 9 months in prison; Hoang Minh Quan (21 years old) to 3 years and 6 months in prison; and Nguyen Minh Duc (22 years old) to 6 years in prison, all for the crime of fraud and appropriation of property. The defendants hacked other people's Facebook accounts to steal money.
The defendants hacked Facebook accounts to steal money from victims, at the trial.
According to the indictment, around May 2020, after serving his prison sentence in Quang Tri , Le Hai Long went to Ho Chi Minh City and invited Cao Tran Duy Han, Hoang Minh Quan, Mai Nhat Minh, and Nguyen Minh Duc to participate in defrauding others of their property, and they all agreed.
Long conspired with the group to commit fraud and embezzle property from others using the following method: Long and Minh used email addresses ngaymai@gmail.com.vn and giahan181111@gmail.com.vn to log in and hack (take over) other people's Facebook accounts using a computer. The group also created fake money transfer invoices using fake account numbers and used the foreign phone number +1573038561 to contact and lure victims; created fake links to websites impersonating foreign money transfer services; and created fake websites impersonating fast money transfer services with pre-written forms requesting victims to fill in login information including phone number, account number, password, and OTP code for money transfer.
After obtaining the information of Facebook users, Long and Minh gave it to Han and Quan, who used the hacked Facebook accounts to change login passwords, impersonate the account owners, and contact their friends and relatives to ask them to transfer money to pay off debts, buy goods, transfer money from abroad for charity, or transfer money quickly through bank accounts, ultimately defrauding the victims.
Embezzled 440 million VND.
Specifically, at approximately 3 PM on June 12, 2020, Han used a stolen Facebook account named "Do Dieu Linh" to impersonate Linh and message Ms. Tran Thi Hong T. (27 years old, residing in Thu Duc City) with the following content: "I still have 2 million VND left to transfer, please transfer it to account number 12999907 Vo Thi Huynh Nhi for your friend. I'll send it back tomorrow morning. My account only has 100 million VND transferred so the transfer limit has been reached." Ms. T. believed it and used her own account to transfer 2 million VND to the account of the defendants.
Similarly, on June 26, 2020, Cao Tran Duy Han used a computer to log into a Facebook account named "Thuy Nguyen". Through this information, Han learned that this person was living in the US and was a friend of the person with the Facebook nickname "Tuyetanh" (Nguyen Thi Tuyet A., 57 years old, residing in Ward 4, Go Vap District). Han sent a message impersonating "Thuy Nguyen" asking her to transfer 5 million VND for charity for orphans, and Ms. Tuyet A. agreed. Han instructed Ms. A. to log into a website created by the group and follow the instructions to provide her username, password, and OTP code to confirm the transfer. Afterwards, Long obtained Ms. Tuyet A.'s account information, password, and OTP code, then used a mobile phone to log into internet banking and transfer 200 million VND from Ms. Tuyet A. to a pre-created account, thus misappropriating the 200 million VND.
In addition to the two incidents mentioned above, the defendants also hacked Facebook accounts and defrauded many other people, with victims transferring amounts ranging from 300,000 VND to tens of millions of VND.
The investigation revealed that from the end of May 2020 to June 2020, using Facebook hacking tactics, Long's group seized login access to over 40 individual Facebook accounts. The total amount stolen from the victims was approximately 440 million VND. However, the investigating agency was only able to work with 6 victims, with the total amount stolen being 329 million VND.
In this case, Long was accused of being the mastermind and ringleader. At trial, Long pleaded not guilty, denying all the charges as alleged and claiming he did not embezzle any money. The remaining defendants all admitted to the crimes as charged in the indictment.
According to the panel of judges, the defendants' actions directly violated the legal right to property ownership and negatively impacted social order and safety. In particular, the prevalence of online fraud is causing public anxiety. Defendant Long has two prior convictions, therefore a severe punishment is necessary to deter similar crimes.
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