Seized 246kg of solid gold, 31 supercars in TikToker Mr Pips fraud case

On the afternoon of December 10, Hanoi City Police officially informed about the case of fraud and appropriation of property on the internet with a scale of up to thousands of billions of VND related to the defendant Pho Duc Nam (born in 1994, residing in Ba Ria - Vung Tau , known as TikToker Mr Pips).

According to the investigation, since 2021, Nam and Le Khac Ngo (born in 1990, residing in Bac Tu Liem district, Hanoi ) have been collaborating with a Turkish national with an executive office in Phnom Penh (Cambodia). This group directed 7 individuals in Vietnam to establish many "ghost" companies, headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and several other provinces and cities.

The subjects set up a company in Ho Chi Minh City as a front and about 44 offices in Vietnam (including 24 offices in Hanoi, 20 offices in other provinces and cities). This company did not register to operate in securities and finance but still recruited employees to operate in the field of foreign exchange and derivative securities trading.

Tiktoker Mr. Pips (Pho Duc Nam) is famous for his videos posting about his luxurious life and teaching how to make money, with hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok and YouTube.

Every day, about 1,000 employees work from 8am to 9pm. The subjects create and manage 5 websites with English interfaces to make participants misunderstand that they are trading on international, reputable exchanges, creating trust for investors.

These websites are essentially programmed, linked to the bank accounts of the management subjects. Each trading platform is connected to the MetaTrader 4 application, MetaTrader 5 is a popular foreign exchange and stock trading platform in the world.

The subjects recruited, assigned, and decentralized the management of employees in the company into many departments (including accounting, human resources, IT, business, and customer care...). These departments complement each other, contacting customers through Zalo, Telegram... to defraud and appropriate property.

The method of this network is to provide false information to make customers trust, transfer money to the accounts designated by the subjects and then appropriate. Initially, Nam and his accomplices lured customers to make many transactions with low amounts of money, make profit and then withdraw the money.

They then use various tricks to guide and encourage customers to increase their trading capital. When investors lose money, even lose all the money in their accounts, the subjects provide false information so that they continue to have faith and transfer more money to "recover". Until the customers are no longer financially capable, the scammers block communication and appropriate all the money.

On October 25, Hanoi Police coordinated with the Ministry of Public Security's professional departments to organize forces to arrest dozens of subjects in this transnational property fraud gang.

To date, the investigation agency has identified 2,661 victims nationwide. At the same time, the police have seized and frozen many assets of the subjects, estimated to be worth more than 5,200 billion VND.

Specifically: 316 billion in cash in the account, bonds worth 9 billion VND, savings books worth more than 200 billion VND; 69 billion VND. In addition, there are 2.3 million USD, 890 SJC gold bars, 246 kg of solid gold, 31 supercars, 7 luxury motorbikes, 59 famous brand watches worth a total of about 300 billion VND, 84 pieces of gold jewelry, inlaid with diamonds. In addition, the authorities have blocked transactions on 125 real estates.

Currently, the Investigation Police Agency has issued decisions to prosecute criminal cases of Fraudulent appropriation of property, Money laundering, Failure to report crimes, and Receiving and consuming property obtained by others through crime.

At the same time, the investigation agency prosecuted 31 subjects, including: 26 defendants for the crime of Fraudulent appropriation of property, 3 defendants for the crime of Money Laundering, 1 defendant for the crime of Failure to report a crime, 1 defendant for the crime of Receiving property obtained by another person through crime.

Minh Tue

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/thu-giu-246kg-vang-nguyen-khoi-31-sieu-xe-vu-tiktoker-mr-pips-lua-dao-ar912728.html