Recovering and handling assets in the case of Tiktoker Mr Pips Pho Duc Nam fraud

Regarding the case of Tiktoker Mr Pips Pho Duc Nam's fraud, Major General Nguyen Thanh Tung, Deputy Director of Hanoi City Police, said that he had asked for the opinion of the authorities to recover Pho Duc Nam's assets abroad and the assets in the subject's e-wallet.

By December 27, the police had collected an additional 12 billion VND, 18 apartments and villas, and identified 500,000 USD in foreign accounts... The total value of Pho Duc Nam's recovered assets was determined to be about 5,300 billion VND.

According to Dr. and lawyer Dang Van Cuong, in the process of conducting criminal proceedings against crimes of infringement of property rights, verifying assets, applying preventive measures, and coercive measures to confiscate and return them to victims are among the legal requirements and demands that the prosecuting agencies must carry out.

The case of fraud and appropriation of property by Pho Duc Nam and a number of other subjects is an especially serious criminal case, the amount of money swindled is especially large with many participants.

After appropriating the victim's money, the subject committed money laundering to conceal the origin of the assets, and at the same time hid and transformed them into many different types of assets, including domestic and foreign assets, both tangible and intangible assets, even existing in the form of virtual currency that Vietnamese law has not yet defined as assets.

Therefore, the prosecution agency will trace the cash flow and assets of the subject to recover assets obtained from crime and assets bearing traces of crime.

According to Dr. Dang Van Cuong's analysis, during the investigation of this case, the investigation agency will clarify the method of crime, clarify the amount of money that the defendants have appropriated from the victims, and at the same time clarify how the money is moved, the subject has transformed the assets, laundered the money as well as where it is hidden.

All assets obtained from crime, assets related to crime, even assets arising from the commission of crimes must be identified, preventive measures and coercive measures applied to recover them, and identified as evidence of criminal cases to handle the evidence according to the provisions of law.

The lawyer said that “virtual money” is not a currency and is not a legal means of payment under the provisions of Vietnamese law. Therefore, with types of “virtual money”, which are not recognized by Vietnamese law as assets, but can be converted into assets, they are also identified as evidence, and will also be recovered to be converted into assets, in order to resolve criminal cases according to the provisions of law.

For assets obtained from crimes or related to crimes that are located abroad, criminal prosecution agencies in Vietnam will contact the host country to verify the origin and the owner's name to request the relevant persons to hand them over or transfer them to Vietnamese criminal prosecution agencies for handling in accordance with Vietnamese law.

The settlement of criminal cases involving foreigners and assets abroad shall comply with international law, treaties, mutual legal assistance agreements and principles of international relations. For countries that do not have mutual legal assistance agreements or bilateral or multilateral international treaties, it may be resolved through diplomatic channels.

“Assets that are real estate or special assets that cannot be recovered or are due to legal conflicts between countries without a legal mechanism will be clearly stated and concluded by the prosecuting agency in the investigation conclusion and indictment,” said lawyer Dang Van Cuong.