Vietnam Thanh Hóa Hotel Fraud Ring: 94 Charged Over Scams Aimed at Japan, China, the US and India

Vietnamese police have charged 94 people over a fraud operation run from a rented hotel in Thanh Hóa province, where 113 foreigners worked scams on victims mainly in Japan, China, the United States, India and South Korea. The Ministry of Public Security puts the preliminary take at about 50 billion dong.

The raid

Thanh Hóa police raided the Văn Hoa hotel in Nghi Sơn ward on 17 October, after immigration officers noticed a foreign group had rented the whole building. The ministry's release lists the foreigners as 74 Chinese, 28 Indian, nine Cambodian, one Malaysian and one from Myanmar. Ninety-one had come in on tourist visas and 22 had crossed the border illegally.

Officers seized 108 computers and more than 500 phones.

Three kinds of scam

Investment fraud was the main line. Staff befriended people online and steered them onto fake trading platforms, which the ministry's newspaper CAND names as Nexuswh, Delta Capital Market, MGX and UNISON-JP. They worked in teams of four or five from about 8 a.m. until 2 a.m., on equipment and data moved in from Cambodia.

Other teams ran sports-betting livestreams that pushed viewers to four betting sites, and a fake US software company, "ODEL DEV LLC", charged job seekers recruitment and training fees. CAND reports that the group chose not to target Vietnamese victims.

The charges

At the government's briefing on 4 November, ministry spokesman Major General Nguyễn Quốc Toản said 94 people had been charged and detained, five more than announced on 25 October. Ninety are foreigners and four Vietnamese.

The main charge is fraud by computer or telecom network under Article 290 of the Penal Code, with some also accused under Article 348 of organising others to stay in Vietnam illegally. One is charged with organising gambling. Police name the alleged ringleader as Zhao Xuefeng, a Chinese national born in 1987.

On 7 November deputy minister Nguyễn Văn Long commended four ministry departments for the case, led by the Criminal Police Department, with the cybersecurity department among them.

Ho Chi Minh City police separately found 14 foreigners running fake stock-trading platforms from a house in Tân Mỹ ward on 4 November.