Investment fraud has been assessed by the Department of Information Security (Ministry of Information and Communications) as one of the six 'hot spots' for online fraud in Vietnam's cyberspace.

According to this agency, the case of Pho Duc Nam, also known as TikToker Mr Pips, luring victims to participate in online investment activities to defraud and appropriate more than 5,200 billion VND has shown the existing dangers of financial investment fraud traps.

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According to the investigation agency, since 2019, the group led by Tiktoker Mr Pips has set up a fraud ring to appropriate assets following the model of stock brokerage companies. Photo: NCSC

With nearly 2,000 employees, the fraud ring run by Mr. Pips created and used many Zalo, Telegram, and Viber accounts to set up investment groups, post many articles by financial experts, and impersonate them to lure and pull victims into the fraud traps they set.

Specifically, to commit fraud and property appropriation, the subjects provided false information related to stock investment floors.

Initially, the group used tricks to lure customers into making multiple transactions with low amounts of money, making profits and being able to withdraw money, then they urged the victims to increase their trading capital.

When the participants are no longer financially capable, the group intervenes in the system to appropriate all the money that the customers have transferred.

In addition, fraudulent exchanges do not have clear operating licenses, promise profits that are too high, and often require continuous deposits.

When investors lose money, scammers will continue to convince victims to deposit more money to "recover".

Anti-investment fraud communication clip jointly produced by the Information Security Department and Meta. Source: NCSC

The Information Security Department said that the financial investment fraud tricks of subjects like Tiktoker Mr Pips have been warned many times by the unit to the public.

The common scenario of subjects using this form of fraud is to target the greed, gullibility and carelessness of the victim to lure and gradually appropriate their assets.

Emphasizing that the scam of the Tiktoker group Mr Pips is a warning to many people about the dangers of participating in online investment activities, the Information Security Department recommends that people absolutely do not trust high-profit investment invitations; do not join closed groups or online communities without verifying the information.

Before participating in any investment project, people need to carefully research the organization or individual inviting investment through various ways such as checking the operating license, reviews from other users, and legal certificates.

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The investment fraud tricks of subjects like Tiktoker Mr Pips have been repeatedly warned by the Department of Information Security (Ministry of Information and Communications) to the public. Illustration photo: NCSC

Users should only download applications from Google Play and App Store; do not download applications from unknown sources to avoid the risk of malware being installed, taking control of the device, leading to property appropriation and theft of personal information.

At the same time, do not rush to transfer money to unknown individuals or organizations without verifying your identity; do not access strange links or provide personal information, bank accounts or credit card information to unknown individuals in any form.

To protect their assets, people also need to be vigilant and not participate in investing or trading on virtual currency exchanges, digital currencies, websites, and virtual currency investment applications.

In case of detecting or suspecting fraud, people need to immediately report to the police to quickly verify, prevent and handle violators according to the provisions of law.

To increase self-awareness and reduce the risk of being scammed online, people are advised to equip themselves with 5 groups of skills to identify and prevent scams, specifically instructed by the Information Security Department in the handbook "Skills to identify and prevent online scams", including: Recognition skills, detection skills, handling skills, prevention skills and protection skills. For each group of skills, the handbook provides from basic skills to advanced skills.
TikToker Mr Pips Pho Duc Nam case: Fraudulent amount of money up to thousands of billions of dong The leader of the Hanoi People's Procuracy said that the amount of money that the defendants defrauded in the TikToker Mr Pips Pho Duc Nam case could be up to thousands of billions of dong.