On January 12, Tra Vinh City Police (Tra Vinh) announced that they had issued an administrative penalty decision to Ms. VTAH (residing in Ward 2) and NTDT (residing in Ward 1) for "Reporting false and untrue information to competent agencies and organizations". Each person was fined 2.5 million VND.

According to the police, on November 7, 2023, Ms. VTAH called the "hotline" of the Director of Tra Vinh Provincial Police to report that her husband owed a football betting debt to a person named M. (residing in Ward 6, Ho Chi Minh City) of 40 million VND. Ms. H. agreed with M. on the time to pay the debt and was agreed. After that, M. frequently texted to collect the debt. Ms. H. requested the Tra Vinh Provincial Police to investigate and handle the matter.

Upon receiving the information, the police took measures to verify the incident and determined that the content Ms. H. provided was not true.

At the police station, Ms. H. admitted that her husband had borrowed the 40 million VND for personal use. On November 7, 2023, M. came to see Ms. H. to demand the money. Fearing that it would affect her business, in a moment of anger, she called the "hotline" of the Provincial Police Director to complain.

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Staff assisting in synthesizing information call the “hotline” of the Director of Tra Vinh Provincial Police. Photo: Tra Vinh Police.

Ms. NTDT reported to Tra Vinh City Police on November 29, 2023 that while she was home alone, an unidentified man drugged her, broke into the cabinet, and stole 15 million VND.

Tra Vinh City Police examined the scene and worked with relevant people.

The police determined that Ms. T. had signs of staging a fake crime scene, so they summoned this woman to the police station. At the police station, Ms. T. admitted to the violation and said that because she owed money and did not dare tell her husband, she staged a fake crime scene to legitimize the act of taking money to pay off the debt.

Tra Vinh police said that after announcing the "hotline" phone number of Colonel Tran Xuan Anh, the Director of the Provincial Police Department, he received a lot of valuable feedback from organizations and individuals, contributing to effectively serving the work of crime prevention and control, ensuring security and order, and building the People's Public Security force.

In addition, the Director of Tra Vinh Provincial Police received a lot of inaccurate information, fake news, harassment, and information that was not within the authority of the Provincial Police.

"In cases of intentional harassment and false information, the Director of the Provincial Police Department directs the Police of units and localities to promptly consolidate records to strictly handle them according to regulations, avoiding wasting human resources and affecting the overall results of the Tra Vinh Police force in ensuring security and order in the locality," said the Tra Vinh Provincial Police Department.

Colonel Tran Xuan Anh directly directed the handling of hundreds of hotline reports . After 2 months of publicizing the hotline number, Colonel Tran Xuan Anh, Director of Tra Vinh Provincial Police, received hundreds of reports and directly directed the handling of the cases.