On Monday, the Da Nang People’s Court sentenced 24-year-old Duong Dinh Dat from Thanh Khe District to 4 years in prison for ‘using computer networks, telecommunication networks, internet, or digital devices to appropriate other's assets’.

According to the indictment by the city’s prosecutors, in May 2012 Dat had found a list of email addresses and passwords shared by other internet users whilst he was online gaming.  Dat then illegally accessed 4 of the email addresses, and found that one of them received many payment transactions from the Square Company in San Francisco, California.

The defendant Dat at his trial (Photo: thanhnien.com.vn)

Dat used this email account to access the company’s website and found information which required the user to have a bank account number to receive the company's payment.  He then registered for a MasterCard from the US Payoneer Company, a service provider member of MasterCard worldwide.

On Feburary 2013, he accessed the company’s website again and switched account details to appropriate around 243 million VND from the Square Company.