Almost lost 650 million VND because of phone scam

On the afternoon of October 12, Ms. BTL, born in 1958, residing in Dong Tam village, Gia Luong commune (Gia Loc), received a phone call from a stranger claiming to be a Hanoi City Police officer informing her that Ms. L. was involved in illegal drug trafficking and money laundering. In addition, an account under her name currently had a huge amount of money, up to 1.6 billion VND. Therefore, she had to transfer all the money in her account to the bank account provided by the subject to legalize the source of money and prove that she was not involved in the above case. If she did not comply with the request, she would be detained by Hanoi City Police for 2 months that afternoon.

The subject also asked Ms. L. to provide personal information, bank account, and keep all the exchange content confidential to serve the investigation. Ms. L. explained to the subject that she did not have a bank account but only had about 650 million VND in savings at the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (AgriBank). The subject immediately asked her to withdraw all of this savings and transfer the money to the bank account provided by the subject.

At around 3:00 p.m. the same day, Ms. L. took 4 savings books and went to the Gia Loc branch of the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (AgriBank) to withdraw money. Here, the bank staff saw that Ms. L. was showing signs of anxiety and fear, constantly asking the bank staff to quickly withdraw all of her savings, so they informed the Gia Loc District Police.

Upon receiving the information, Gia Loc District Police quickly assigned officers to contact, explain, and encourage her to calmly explain the incident. After being informed and explained by the District Police officers, Ms. L. realized that she was lucky not to have been cheated out of the above amount of money.