Yesterday, the Da Nang Department of Investigation Police temporarily detained Huynh Van Trung, 21, and Ho Tan Linh, 25, both from Quang Nam Province’s Duy Xuyen District, and prosecuted them for ‘using computers, telecom networks and the Internet to appropriate assets’.

Linh (left) and Trung at the police station

According to the initial investigation, Trung and Linh had send links to hundreds of Facebook and Zalo accounts, announcing that their owners had won high value motorbikes.  Then the offenders had tried to get the personal information and phone numbers of the victims, and convince them to send prepaid mobile phone cards to them as a fee for receiving the prizes.

Over the past 5 months, they have successfully cheated over 100 people in many cities and provinces nationwide, swindling a total of over 400 million VND.  One victim lost more than 20 million VND in the fraud.

After receiving the cards from the victims, Linh had converted the virtual money into real money, whilst Trung had sold them to Internet shops to play games online.

The case is under further investigation.