Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam: A court in Ho Chi Minh city had sentenced a Taiwanese man, his wife and seven other accomplices to 20 years in prison for defrauding 33 Vietnamese in different cases of phone scam.
Wu Tung I, 42, and his 30-year-old Vietnamese wife Vo Ngoc Bich Hien guilty of phone scam to 20 years and 13 years respectively for fraud cases in Ho Chi Minh. Also the 7 accomplices working with the couple got 11 months to 8 years. This includes a man called Ho Nhat Khanh, who got the longest time from the accomplices.
The Crime
Wu Tang and his wife had called up Khanh to purchase a large number of ATM cards for an estimated price of $92. The men through the use of technical gadgets change their numbers to phone numbers of authorities and would call up their victims pretending to be investigators.
They harassed the victims on the phone by accusing them of money laundering charges and would later ask them to transfer the money to one of the ATM's they had brought from Khanh.
Their Waterloo
On March 10, 2014, Hien (Wu Tang wife) had called up a lady, using the same tactics, asked the lady to pay a sum of $417 while impersonating an employee of Vietnam post and telecommunications group (VNPT).
Hien then transfer the call to one of their accomplices who claimed to be a police officer in Hanoi. The impersonator told the lady she is being investigated for money laundering. He then ordered her to send all the money in her account to the "police account" for investigation. He promised the money will be returned 24 hours if she is found to be innocent
The lady went ahead and transfer 569 million Dong ($26,391) to the said account. After 24 hours and the money was not returned, she went to report the case to the police.
An investigation kicked off,which later led to the arrest of Wu Tang, Hien, Khanh and other accomplices.
The men was reported to have swindled 33 Vietnamese of cash, $326,150 (7 billion Vietnamese Dong) from November 2013 to March 2014.
Wu Tang is also wanted on drug smuggling charges by Taiwanese police.
Doy News